A joke has long been making the rounds in Belarus that the country has produced three times as many presidents of Israel as native-born presidents of Belarus itself. Amazingly, this joke continues to accurately reflect reality, with the country’s first and only Belarusian-born head of state, Alexander Lukashenko, having wielded uninterrupted power since 1994. Yet, that durable longevity may finally be turning into a liability for the incumbent, who is up for reelection this August. Lukashenko has been evincing fairly unusual electoral anxiety at this early stage of the campaign—before all the signatures in support of his potential rivals have even been collected. Meanwhile, transient factors such as the pandemic and economic decline appear to be turning portions of the electorate away from him.
OP-ED
Grigory Ioffe: Belarusian elections and geopolitical somersaults
Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko leaves a polling booth at a polling station during Belarus' parliamentary election in Minsk on Nov. 17, 2019.
