Letter From the Editors

The 2025 presidential election in Belarus differed markedly from the last one, in 2020, when crowds of protesters cried fraud and claimed victory for Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who wouldn’t even have run if her husband, Sergei, had not been arrested beforehand. This time around, there were no arrests (in fact, the Lukashenko administration made a big show of releasing dozens of political prisoners), nor did anyone report protests before or after. And during the election itself, foreign observers and journalists were invited in droves to watch people vote.

One of these was Russian journalist Yevgeny Shestakov, who had this to report: “At polling stations 71 and 74 at the Minsk Automobile Plant, I was shown a list of foreign observers who had already been there that day. . . . The guests included representatives from Poland, Iran, North Korea, CIS countries and Hungary.” Guests and voters alike were treated in style: “Each booth has a large table lamp. There are carpets on the floor. The observers were stationed near electoral commission members. . . . And, of course, people were selling things everywhere. And where the location allowed for it, people were grilling kebabs on the street.” According to Shestakov, journalists were even encouraged to come back later in the evening when the votes would be counted.

So, what has changed since 2020? All the evidence points to trust in Lukashenko being higher than ever before. Analyst Valery Karbalevich explains the various factors behind this. First, “many people have emigrated from Belarus over the past four years: According to various estimates, 300,000 to 500,000 people have left. . . . And it was generally opponents of Lukashenko who left.” Second, the invasion of Ukraine spooked many Belarussians, and Lukashenko allayed their fears by guaranteeing that Belarus would not be drawn into the war. Third, continues Karbalevich, “political repressions are essentially cutting Belarussians off from alternative information. Today it is a crime in Belarus to listen to the news from independent media organizations, which have all been declared extremist. . . . For example, people are being jailed for subscribing to independent media outlets. Many Web sites are blocked.”

Unfortunately, having limited access to information also makes you more susceptible to disinformation. At least, this seems to be the case with the Russian State Duma, which took at face value a claim by conservative journalist Tucker Carlson that the Biden administration had planned to assassinate Putin. According to Vedomosti, “on Jan. 27, Carlson told political commentator Matt Taibbi that the Biden administration ‘tried to kill’ Putin. However, the journalist did not provide any evidence.” Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the Duma from issuing an official statement that even the discussion of such an act could be classified as an “act of international state terrorism,” since it poses “a serious threat to global security and could lead to a global nuclear war.”

This sort of allegation (Carlson’s, not the Duma’s) reminds us of regime changes in post-Soviet states, in which new leaders try to discredit the old ones by accusing them of criminal behavior. Think back to Georgia’s “rose revolution,” which brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power – and his subsequent prosecution and exile under Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream.

Neighboring Abkhazia may also be facing a regime change – or not. NG describes the upcoming presidential election as “a stress test for its statehood” in the wake of the November 2024 ouster of president Aslan Bzhania. However, an ARCSPO poll indicates that most voters don’t like either the opposition, led by Adgur Ardzinba, or Bzhania’s hastily appointed successor, Badra Gunba. Only 51% of respondents even said they would definitely vote. Maybe they just need a little more incentive – like some fragrant kebabs to entice them to the ballot booths.