Belarus will hold police drills this week ahead of presidential elections , scheduled for January 26, in order to ensure the prevention of “extremism and terrorism“, the Belarusian Interior Ministry reported, as quoted by Reuters and BTA.
President Alexander Lukashenko, who rules the country with an “iron hand” for more than 20 years, is expected to win the election.
„The purpose (of the exercises) is to prevent manifestations of extremism and terrorism, the participation of citizens in illegal actions and suppression of violations of public order,” said in a statement published by the Ministry of the Interior on the “Telegram” platform. .
The exercises will take place from November 19 to 22 in the capital Minsk, as well as in major regional cities and centers, the authorities specify.
Seventy-year-old Lukashenko, who calls himself “the last dictator in Europe”, is a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Reuters notes.
The re-election of Lukashenko for a sixth term in 2020. sparked unprecedented protests after the opposition and the West accused him of election manipulations that deprived his main rival Svetlana Tikhanovska of any chance of victory.
A Moscow-backed crackdown on opposition protests led to the arrest of thousands of demonstrators, some of whom were subsequently pardoned.
Human rights organizations report that there are still around 1,400 political prisoners in Belarus. Among them are Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Białacki, the leader of the 2020 protests. Maria Kolesnikova and Sergey Tikhanovsky, Svetlana Tikhanovsky's husband.