January 10, Pozirk. The upcoming presidential election in Belarus will most likely have nothing to do with elections in the democratic sense, Polish President Andrzej Duda told Belarusian opposition leader Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja in Warsaw yesterday.
“Again, we will see what we have already observed – just fraud,” he said.
The current Belarusian electoral campaign is taking place amid stepped-up reprisals, Duda added, noting a recent lengthy prison sentence for Catholic priest Hienryk Akałatovič.
Duda and Cichanoŭskaja also discussed ways to secure the release of Andrej Pačobut, journalist and Polish minority activist, as well as all other political prisoners.
Cichanoŭskaja arrived in Poland on January 8 on a three-day visit that focuses on the European strategy for Belarus during Poland’s presidency of the European Union. She met with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and several other top officials.
Belarus will hold its seventh presidential election from January 21 to 26, with the whole election cycle limited to just three months. The current campaign is taking place in a purged political landscape amid a new crackdown on regime critics.
The Belarusian opposition dismissed the election as a sham, noting that political reprisals prevent pro-democracy candidates from running and voters from freely expressing their will.
The country has not held a single free and fair election since 1996 by the standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
