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Dec 4, 202418 min read

Presidential Elections 2025 in the Republic of Belarus

Updated: Dec 5, 2024

Four years after Lukashenko's botched 2020 presidential election, a new presidential campaign is beginning in Belarus. It takes place in new, unprecedented conditions and requires new approaches from Lukashenko and his entourage not only to ensure the necessary voting results, but also to keep the public under control during this most critical period.

For this purpose, a special “election management” strategy has been developed by the recently appointed executive management of the Presidential Administration. The implementation of this strategy is handled by Lukashenko's election HQ, traditionally located in the Central House of Officers (3 Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, Minsk). Its tasks include not only supporting Lukashenko's candidacy for the elections and monitoring the situation, but also managing the elections themselves, i.e. ensuring that they are conducted in accordance with the planned strategy and achieving the overall results Lukashenko wants. It brings together specialists from several ministries and organisations.

The data available in the public and from informed sources close to Lukashenko's election HQ allow us to conclude that in 2024 Lukashenko's election HQ has completely changed its tactics and developed a new strategy of “election management” compared to the previous campaigns. These changes are important both for the general understanding of the evolution of the power system in Belarus and for political forecasting of the election results and further political course of A. Lukashenko and his entourage.

1. Preparation Stage

Already at the preparation stage it became obvious that the election HQ was preparing for a military-style election campaign, maintaining a high level of discipline and mobilisation in the power vertical, suppressing the will of opponents by repressions and using such classic elements of military strategy as surprise factor, disinformation and disorientation.

In general, we can say that the authorities are moving towards solving their political problems through the systematic use of hybrid warfare methods against their own population.

Repression itself is nothing new, as detentions and sentences against individual politicians and activists dangerous to the authorities were common during previous election campaigns, but now repression has become a systematic, well-thought-out, and permanent tool with new objectives.

Its task is no longer to simply neutralise individual oppositionists, but to prevent any public or other protest activity during elections through psychological terror and intimidation. In 2020, it was videos of mass protests broadcast by numerous Telegram channels that served as a powerful catalyst for the formation of the opposition movement, as well as evidence of vote rigging. In this regard, it is vital for the authorities to exclude such actions during the current election campaign. This new, strategic character of repression during elections is evidenced by the consistently high numbers of almost random detentions and convictions. According to the Human Rights Centre „Viasna”, from September to mid-November Belarusian courts opened at least 1213 political administrative cases.[1] For this reason, repression will not stop throughout the whole election campaign.

Disinformation and disorientation during the preparatory phase of the election campaign included the following:

Since the spring of 2024, Lukashenko purposefully gave no clear answer to regular questions about whether he would run in the elections of 2025. This was deliberately emphasised by the media to ensure close attention from the public and experts.
Notably, A. Lukashenko's press secretary N. Eismont tried to maintain the intrigue even after A. Lukashenko himself finally announced his participation in the elections in an interview with Russian propagandist O. Skabeeva on 23 October.[2] Thus, N. Eismont told Russian journalists that this statement of A. Lukashenko should not be understood as an unambiguously positive answer, because his final decision depends on the people’s will.[3]
The narrative that the Kremlin and/or China would force Lukashenko not to participate in the elections was actively spread among the Belarusian opposition through unofficial sources. As a result, for example, such opposition analysts as Sergei Chaly and Dmitri Bolkunets convinced the public to the last minute that Lukashenko would not go to the elections and that some political changes were coming.[4],[5]
Organisation of former law enforcers BELPOL, referring to „reliable sources inside Belarus”, stated that the elections would be held on 23 February 2025.[6] Although the option of elections in February, judging by several references, was indeed considered by the authorities, however, in the end, the elections – unexpectedly for the opposition – were scheduled a month earlier, in January.

Surprise Factor: The decision to hold the next presidential election in Belarus was delayed until the last moment amid unreliable leaks and rumours. As a result, on October 23, it was passed on the floor of the House of Representatives on the motion of the Central Election Commission (CEC). However, it is noteworthy that the procedure of announcing the date of elections was carried out without any prior notice to the deputies (for example, in the weekly and monthly schedule of the lower house of parliament a meeting on 23 October was not planned, many deputies went on official trips).[7] Obviously, the CEC chairman I. Karpenko did not know about it in advance either, as he vaguely explained the hurry by the necessity of the newly elected president's participation in the strategic planning for the next five-year period.[8]

As a result, the possibility of information leaks was eliminated. Thanks to this, Lukashenko managed to take his opponents both in the opposition and in Moscow by surprise with an unexpectedly early date and a very narrow time window for preparing for the elections – from 23 October to 26 January.

Such extraordinary actions gave rise to various conspiracy theories about the reasons for the rush. The most widespread of them – about A. Lukashenko's health problems – was finally dispelled by the latter on 7 November, when he demonstrated good physical shape during his visit to the 3rd Championship in wood chopping (see photo).[9]

Fig. 1. Lukashenko chopping wood

In addition, the subsequent course of events clearly demonstrated that this date was a surprise for anyone but official Minsk. It entered the election campaign prepared and confident.

2. Calculations and Miscalculations of the Authorities During Candidates’ Registration

On 24 October, the CEC approved the schedule for the presidential election in Belarus. By this point, it became obvious that the Presidential Administration was going to hold “sterile” elections, i.e. elections with zero recorded protests and violations, to create a positive picture outside Belarus and for its lobbyists in the West. This, however, makes it somewhat more difficult to keep the election campaign under the full control of the authorities and leads to the only difficulties for Lukashenko's election HQ.

This contradiction became visible early at the first stage of the election campaign.

During this phase initiative groups of candidates were registered within six working days to collect signatures for candidate nomination.

On 1 November, the CEC approved the lists of initiative groups, allowing seven candidates to run:

The incumbent head of state A. Lukashenko.
O. Haidukevich, MP, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party.
A. Hizhnyak, chairman of the Republican Party of Labour and Justice.
C. Syrankov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus.
O. Chemodanova, former press secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, head of the main department of ideological work and youth affairs of Minsk City Executive Committee.
A. Kanopatskaya, former member of parliament, former presidential candidate in the 2020 elections.
S. Bobrikov, Chairman of the Republican Council of the Belarusian Union of Officers.

To make the political process look more democratic, the leaders of three of the four parties registered in Belarus were allowed to run as presidential candidates. The fourth and the largest of them all, the “Belaya Rus” party, officially declared itself as pro-presidential and actively participates in support of A. Lukashenko's candidate.

In addition, the list traditionally includes a representative of the „constructive opposition” – namely A. Kanopatskaya, who has already participated in the 2020 elections, where she avoided public communication with voters and did not participate in protests.[10]

There were no names of current or former high-ranking officials on the candidate list. Although this could certainly add intrigue and improve the political image of the election, A. Lukashenko is obviously not ready for such an experiment. Officials must demonstrate the absolute unity and cohesion of the entire state administrative apparatus around candidate #1 – the incumbent president.

This is where the first miscalculation occurred.

Five days after the start of signature collection, S. Bobrikov and O. Chemodanova withdrew from further participation in the election campaign. Bobrikov explained his decision by „numerous requests of the members of the Belarusian Union of Officers to rally round our Commander-in-Chief <A. Lukashenko> to save the country and ensure its stability”.[11] Chemodanova openly stated that the main goal of the board of the Minsk city organisation of the public association „Belarusian Union of Women”, which nominated her as a candidate, was “to demonstrate the openness and democracy” of the political system in Belarus. Therefore, having heard the „public demand for consolidation”, she decided not to participate in the election campaign.[12]

This surprisingly quick withdrawal is an obvious attempt to address an error made by Lukashenko's election HQ, caused by an overly strong desire to create a sense of democratic elections. The fact is that although both candidates have no political weight of their own, they represent two influential GONGOs (Government-Organised Non-Governmental Organisations), i.e. nominally non-governmental public organisations established at the initiative or with the participation of the authorities and working for the interests of the state.

„Belarusian Union of Officers” consists of 125 district, 12 city and 232 primary organisations and counts more than 13 thousand officers in its membership.[13] „Belarusian Union of Women” is the largest women's organisation of the country, which unites more than 162 thousand women.[14] The presence of presidential candidates from these organisations implies that they would be actively supported by both the „Belarusian Union of Officers” and the „Belarusian Union of Women”. Thus, quite unexpectedly, on the initiative of Lukashenko's HQ itself, a split emerged among the forces loyal to him, which had to be quickly eliminated.

3. Administrative Management of the Election Campaign

From the very beginning of the election campaign, fundamental changes in the approach to „election management” became evident.

Change #1. Change of the Heads of the Election HQ

In 2020, Lukashenko's election HQ was managed by three co-heads: Chairperson of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly N. Kochanova, Chief of the President's Property Management Department V. Sheiman, and Chairperson of the Federation of Trade Unions M. Orda. M. Orda practically did not take part in the activities of the HQ, and N. Kochanova and V. Sheiman acted in a completely uncoordinated manner because of their personal dislike for each other. As a result, there was no systematic and planned work at the HQ against the background of general indifference of all those involved in its work.

In 2024, Lukashenko returned Natalia Petkevich, one of his most respected, influential and effective administrators of Belarus, from her political exile in New York. Even though she holds the public position of Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, in fact she is not involved in the daily work of the Administration but is only concerned with the administrative vertical and elections 2025.

The work of the election HQ has changed accordingly.

For example, in 2020, Lukashenko held his first meeting on topical socio-economic and political issues (read: on the election campaign) only on 25 May, after the collection of signatures for the nomination of candidates, which started on 21 May.[15] The composition of this meeting was rather private – the Head of the Presidential Administration I. Sergeenko and three co-heads of Lukashenko's election HQ – N. Kochanova, V. Sheiman and M. Orda.

This year A. Lukashenko convened a meeting on the organisation and conduct of the election campaign already on 5 November, before the start of collecting signatures for candidates. This time, apart from the Head of the Presidential Administration D. Krutoy and the chairman of the Council of the Republic of Belarus N. Kochanova, the meeting was attended by State Secretary of the Security Council A. Volfovich, head of the Operational and Analytical Centre under the President of Belarus A. Pavliuchenko, chairman of the KGB I. Tertel, head of the CEC I. Karpenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs M. Ryzhenkov and governors of all regions. During the meeting A. Lukashenko urged those present to „proceed from the worst-case scenario” of the situation in Belarus during the election campaign.[16] Thus, this time all the main representatives of the power and bureaucratic elites of Belarus were involved in the process from the very beginning.

Change #2. Voter Outreach

In 2020, already at the stage of collecting signatures for the nomination of candidates, N. Kachanova, who had no experience in election campaigns and considered the elections as a routine task, bet on complete falsification of the election results in favour of the incumbent president and completely neglected voter outreach.

For example, three weeks after the beginning of signature collection N. Kochanova together with M. Orda reported to A. Lukashenko that more than one million signatures had been collected in favour of his nomination. After a half-joking question: „Why not two million?”, N. Kochanova replied after a second hesitation: „No problem!”. Returning to the election HQ, she personally called all the governors and set them the task of collecting the required number of signatures within five working days. Reasoned objections that all administrative resources had already been used and that it was unrealistic to fulfil the set task were met with rude insults and threats to the people she spoke to.

As result, unlike the signatures collected earlier, the first check showed a huge amount of unreliable data in the second batch of the collected signature. In response, Kochanova simply ordered to stop such checks, stating that „no one will check our signature sheets anyway”.

In 2020 A. Lukashenko's election HQ was also extremely negligent in organising political picketing, even though this form of work with voters was mentioned in the election campaign plan of A. Lukashenko, 549 pickets were officially applied for and funds for picketing were allocated.[17]

The main reason for ignoring this issue was again the position of the co-head of the election HQ N. Kochanova, who believed that stationary locations of territorial branches of the public movement „Belaya Rus” would perfectly cope with this task.

Small information boards were put up in the streets near these offices, saying that at such and such an address one could sign for candidate A. Lukashenko or get the necessary information about his election programme. Another co-head V. Sheiman, who disagreed with this approach, even ordered the employees of the Presidential Property Management Department to conduct a covert inspection of the work of such „information points”, which confirmed their low efficiency due to the low level of public confidence in the NGO „Belaya Rus” and the lack of citizens' intention to proactively search for information about A. Lukashenko's election programme.

Finally, the process of preparation of printed campaign materials was also characterised by complete negligence. It arrived at the election HQ late, had a small print run (a few thousand copies of each type of production). The materials contained a significant number of errors. V. Sheiman, who was informed about it, ordered to deliver him several copies of these products and forbade to issue them for distribution among the population. The next day it turned out that the texts of these advertising materials had not been coordinated with anyone in the election HQ, and the printing on the instructions of N. Kochanova was carried out in a small private printing house in one of the regions of Belarus. As a result, this print run was destroyed, and the regional governors were tasked to urgently organise the production of printed advertising materials by their own efforts.

In 2024 Lukashenko's election HQ is conducting the campaign in a completely different way. Much attention is paid to public collection of signatures for Lukashenko in different formats – in the form of pickets, “visits to labour collectives”, „communication with citizens in different formats”.[18],[19] Although the agitation stage has not yet started, there is already a huge amount of propaganda materials in the mass media, disguised as articles, reports and interviews, explaining to the voter all the merits of candidate A. Lukashenko.

Change #3. Political PR

Lukashenko's election HQ launched two large-scale political PR campaigns at once – „Unity Marathon” and „Needs to be done!” (“Надо!” in Russian).

Unity Marathon started on 17 September 2024. Formally it is a „social and cultural campaign”, but in fact it is advertising the achievements of the state under the leadership of A. Lukashenko, using state resources, in particular of the ministries of culture, information, antimonopoly regulation and trade, as well as sports and tourism, Minsk City Executive Committee, regional executive committees, the state news agency „BelTA”, the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, BRSM, Belteleradiocompany, the National Library of Belarus, „Belarusian Society „Znana”, the National Library of Belarus, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus.

The head of the working group for the preparation of the Unity Marathon is Anna Lukashenko, wife of his son Dmitri.

Fig. 2. Geography of the Unity Marathon

Another unprecedented in scale and new in content PR-action is „Needs to be done!” in support of A. Lukashenko's nomination as a presidential candidate.[20] Within its framework, under the control of the presidential vertical, many video clips were recorded all over the country, in which various groups and categories of Belarusian citizens declared the need for the incumbent president to run for president in the upcoming elections. Among them:

employees of Belarusian enterprises such as Bellegprom, MAZ, MTZ, Belorusneft and others.
journalists of news agencies, newspapers, TV channels (for example, presenters of „Dobraj Ranitsy, Belarus”).
students of the Belarusian State University Institute of Journalism.
Belarusian athletes: players and specialists of Belarusian basketball clubs and national teams, SKA-Minsk handball club.
popular artists: People's Artist of Belarus Anatoly Yarmolenko, Alexander Solodukha, Yulia Bykova, famous producer Yevgeny Oleinik.
Servicemen of the Belarusian army, special forces, cadets, sergeants, soldiers, officers.
RNPC staff, young people from city hospitals, regional hospital staff, medical school professors, pharmacists, and the Academy of Veterinary Medicine.

Despite the somewhat outdated style of the event (the slogan „ Needs to be done!” is clearly borrowed from the famous Soviet times expression „The Party said: Needs to be done! Komsomol answered: Yes!”/Партия сказала: надо! Комсомол ответил: есть!), the action itself can be seen as quite innovative against the backdrop of 2020.

Within the framework of the election campaign, a number of consistently and quite successfully used techniques of manipulation of the voter's consciousness are used. Among them:

Positive framing of the concepts of Belarus and Lukashenko.
Belarus is presented as an ideal country to live in („Belarus is the most calm and peaceful place on the Earth”, „Belarus is the only country where GDP growth is observed against the background of global decline”, „Belarusians are the happiest people”, „Belarus is the most democratic country”, etc.). All these statements are not supported by any real data, but they are very compulsively repeated in any public communication.
„Lukashenko is presented as a saviour and a strict but fair guardian („guarantor of peace in the country and the region”, „In the West there are anti-people governments, but in Belarus everything is for the people and for the people”, „Lukashenko did not allow Belarus to be dragged into war”, „Batska is strict but fair – he even releases his repentant opponents from prison”, „Lukashenko takes care of pensioners and other low-income groups”, etc.);
Manipulation of sociological data.[21] Thus, according to a survey conducted by the analytical centre EcooM, to the question „Do you trust Lukashenko?” 80,4% of respondents allegedly answered „I do”. At the same time 67,5% trust the government, 65,1% of respondents „always take part in elections”.[22]
According to the survey conducted by the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, 85% of young Belarusians are „optimistic about their future”, 95,6% „feel protected,” and 71,9% are ready to take an active part in the life of society and the state.
The EcooM Centre is state-controlled, and BRSM is a GONGO, but the „magic of numbers” certainly influences the audience.
Shaping the image of an enemy to rally the society („NATO is planning a military operation against Belarus and is accumulating forces on the border”, „Radical opposition is preparing forceful options to overthrow the authorities”, etc.).

Lukashenko and his representatives also purposefully go to the places where the protests in 2020 were especially strong. Thus, on 13 November the central Belarusian news agency BelTA published a photo report from the picket of Lukashenko's initiative group in the territory of the High Technology Park (HTP). According to the publication, there were queues to sign in favour of Lukashenko. Moreover, HTP residents transferred funds to his special election account.[23] Meanwhile, in 2020 it was the IT-industry residents who were one of the main driving forces of the protest movement. Thus, Belarusians are left with the impression that even there the opposition sentiment has vanished.

On 22 November, Lukashenko visited Minsk State Linguistic University, fully engulfed by the protest movement in 2020, to hold an Open Mic meeting there.[24]

Change #4. Special Services’ Control over Election Campaign

Having drawn conclusions from the situation in August 2020, the authorities have prepared themselves for any kind of protests during the election period and are actively demonstrating their readiness to use the full range of the power bloc's capabilities if necessary. As early as 25 October, Minister of Interior Affairs I. Kubrakov said that in November Belarus would start an active phase of exercises and training of law enforcement forces, during which the state of security in each locality would be analysed and operational HQ would be established to maintain law and order during the election campaign.[25]

Moreover, on 5 November I. Kubrakov promised to involve veterans of his Ministry, who number about 27,000 people, in the elections. „Former employees are planned to be involved in the protection of public order at polling stations, while „elders” from among them will become members of commissions and observers,” said the minister.[26] Thus, law enforcers will take under constant control both polling stations and election commissions.

The composition of the territorial commissions is also telling. Of the 1725 members, 1179 were nominated from pro-state (there were no others left after the purge of civil society) political parties and public associations.[27]

Also, according to the updated Constitution, authorities decided not to set up polling stations abroad, where there are a lot of Lukashenko's opponents.[28]

4. The Kremlin Factor

There are many rumours about the relationship between A. Lukashenko and V. Putin. Although these relations are not quite easy, the issue of their personal contacts is secondary to the great geopolitical benefits that both politicians derive from their alliance.

A. Lukashenko's political manoeuvres over the last 4 years, such as making changes to the Constitution, strengthening the role of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, repeated statements that he would soon leave, undoubtedly testify that such negotiations with Moscow were conducted, but in the end, Lukashenko still did as he saw fit, ignoring his previous statements and promises.

Russia, for its part, has no better option than Lukashenko to lead Belarus, which is why Russia immediately declared its support for Lukashenko for the presidential election.

On 22 October, Russian Ambassador to Belarus B. Gryzlov said in an interview to „RIA Novosti” that Moscow would help Minsk in case of attempts to destabilise the situation during the presidential election in 2025.[29]

On 5 November, during the ceremony of presenting credentials by ambassadors of 28 states, Putin called Russian-Belarusian relations „fraternal”, described them as having „high dynamics” and wished „Belarusian friends” a successful presidential election.[30]

This does not mean that the Kremlin will not try to use the elections in Belarus to test technologies to manipulate Belarusian public opinion, but in general Putin does not need a repeat of 2020. The Kremlin has achieved the main thing: Belarus is economically completely dependent on Russia and is in foreign policy isolation. In this situation, A. Lukashenko's new presidential term is just a postponement on the way to establishing full political control over Belarus. Russia can wait.

5. Conclusions and Forecast

Conclusions

This election campaign shows significant differences from the 2020 elections:

Lukashenko's election HQ, which oversees the entire electoral process, was significantly strengthened. This time it has a strong leadership, a clear strategy and necessary human and financial resources for its implementation.
Appropriate conclusions were drawn from the events of 2020. All parts of the public administration system were optimized to act quickly, clearly and coherently. The campaign itself is conducted in an almost military style, using such elements of hybrid warfare as psychological terror, repression, deception, disinformation.
The actions of the authorities look several orders of magnitude more professional than the activities of the Belarusian opposition, which cannot get out of the mode of “support of the Belarusian people”, assume leadership functions and start acting like politicians.
Repression has become an integral part of the preparation and conduct of election campaigns. Its aim is to intimidate civil society and prevent public protests. Also, security forces now are present in territorial election commissions and thus control the voting process from inside.
Belarusian authorities do not allow any more „games in democracy” and real alternative election candidates. They intend to demonstrate to the Belarusians the fact that A. Lukashenko has no alternatives whatsoever.
The strategic goal of the Belarusian authorities is to hold „sterile elections” in which all the results and actions, including the opposition, will be planned in advance and controlled; while at the same time, for an external observer, the impression of democratic process is preserved as much as possible for the international legitimisation of Lukashenko.
These two tasks are, however, not fully compatible and are the only potential weakness of the concept of “sterile elections”, as demonstrated by the miscalculation of candidate registration.
The Kremlin publicly supported Lukashenko's decision to run for a new presidential term, thus dispelling rumours about possible Russian attempts to interfere in the election campaign. Now, against the backdrop of more and more tension points appearing on Russia's perimeter, a controlled Belarus is an absolute priority for Russia.

Forecast

All the above allows us to make the following forecast:

The election campaign in Belarus will take place under the full control of official Minsk and without serious incidents.
The results of sociological polls organised by the authorities, as well as the large number of collected signatures (already one and a half million and growing) indicate that A. Lukashenko's unconditional victory (at the level of even up to 85-90% of votes) will be declared, which will have to demonstrate to both internal and external spectators that there is no more demand for political changes in Belarus.
Observers from friendly countries invited to the elections will praise the perfect organisation of the elections and note that there are no irregularities.
Lukashenko will use the election results as a tool to solve his numerous domestic and foreign state problems – from participation in the Ukraine negotiations to the transit of power in Belarus. At the same time, his re-election will matter most to Moscow. Neither the Belarusians inside the country, nor the West will be impressed by the success in the unfree elections.
A. Kanopatskaya will acknowledge Lukashenko's victory and will be used by the regime as a new leader of the „constructive opposition” who will be presented to the Western countries that have good contacts with Lukashenko, first of all Hungary and Austria, in order to try to establish a non-binding dialogue, which could allow Lukashenko to start the process of gradual recognition in the West. This part of the plan, however, is unlikely to be realised for objective reasons: The West has long ceased to trust Lukashenko.