{"id":124499,"date":"2025-02-01T21:49:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T18:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/124499\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","slug":"information-ministry-admits-creating-special-environment-before-election","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/124499\/","title":{"rendered":"Information ministry admits shaping media environment before election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 1, Pozirk.<\/em><\/strong> Belarusian Information Minister Marat Marka\u016d has admitted eliminating a pluralistic media environment in the run-up to the presidential election, undermining Minsk’s and Moscow’s claims that the vote was free and fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Never before have we approached the shaping of the information space so responsibly,” Marka\u016d said yesterday on Belarus 1<\/em>, a state-run television channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“All those mass media (as they called themselves) that worked here exclusively to destroy our country using Western money, they weren’t here this time,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Probably for the first time in two and a half decades, no one in television studios said during our elections that if they lost, everyone should go out to the square [Marka\u016d used the Belarusian word “p\u0142o\u0161\u010da” in his Russian speech] and use force to overthrow the country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the authorities allowed only four political parties and eliminated the non-governmental organizations “receiving billions and working against the state.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice was not between Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka and other candidates but “between peace and war,” he stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We need to clearly remember that 2030 [the next presidential election] is ahead and prioritize it in the next five years,” the minister said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russian-led observers said the election met international standards, while the European Union and its allies dismissed it as a sham.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belarus has not held a single free and fair election since 1996, by the standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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