Opposition leader slams Belarus dictator Lukashenko’s ‘fake inauguration’

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has been sworn in for a seventh consecutive presidential term at a ceremony in Minsk, having been declared the winner of the country’s widely criticised elections in January, state news agency BELTA reported on Tuesday.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, swore his oath in Belarusian rather than Russian, one of the few times he has spoken the language in an official capacity, Russian news agency TASS reported. In his speech, he praised the country’s prosperity and stability, saying that “half the world dreams of such a dictatorship”.

The date of the inauguration ceremony appears to have been chosen to coincide with Belarus’s Freedom Day, which marks the country’s 1918 declaration of independence, which is widely celebrated by Lukashenko’s rivals in exile, as opposed to the regime-backed Independence Day on 3 July, which marks the liberation of Minsk from Nazi occupation by the Red Army in 1944.

Despite being obviously rigged, the January election, which the country’s electoral commission declared Lukashenko won by a landslide, was not met by any significant protests, unlike the popular reaction to the previous presidential election in 2020, when a huge wave of protests over Lukashenko’s clearly stolen 81% of the vote broke out across the country before being brutally put down by the authorities.

It was at that time that many leading opposition figures, including Lukashenko’s main rival and the person widely believed to have won the previous election, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, were forced into exile.

Tsikhanouskaya dismissed Lukashenko’s “fake” inauguration as “a little party” for a dictator, adding that “Dictators love their staged ceremonies, but we know the truth: Belarusians didn’t choose him, and never will. Real inaugurations follow free elections — and that day is coming.”