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The expert elections*2025 observation mission was organized by the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Viasna Human Rights Center as part of the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign. The mission collects and analyzes information about the election campaign based on open sources and messages from voters from Belarus.

CONCLUSIONS

The seventh presidential election* in Belarus took place against the backdrop of a deep human rights crisis caused by the repression that followed peaceful protests against fraud in the previous presidential election. The authorities continue to arbitrarily persecute candidates, members of election teams and initiative groups, observers, activists and simply caring citizens who signed their names for the nomination of independent candidates in the previous presidential elections in 2020. Scheduling the elections for January 26, 2025, 6 months before the expected date (and 7 days before the deadline for registration of initiative groups to nominate presidential candidates), indicates the instrumentalization of electoral procedures and manipulation of legislation. In essence, the authorities adjusted the election date to political objectives, thereby violating electoral legislation in terms of equality of opportunity for candidates and the principle of election predictability provided for by international electoral standards.

The monitoring of all stages of the election campaign conducted by the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign allows us to conclude that the presidential elections* did not meet international standards for democratic and free elections, and were accompanied by numerous violations of the electoral legislation of the Republic of Belarus. All stages of the electoral process were not just administratively controlled by the authorities but were organized by them to keep Aliaksandr Lukashenka in power while imitating his broad popular support. This is evidenced by:

• the complete suppression of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association, and other human rights, without which it is impossible to speak about free and democratic elections;
• opaque formation of election commissions;
• candidates approved by the authorities, who did not base their election programs on criticism of A. Lukashenka's policies but on the full support of him (with the exception of A. Kanapatskaya);
• collection of signatures aimed at creating the appearance of support only for A. Lukashenko (it was declared that the signatures of more than a third of all voters had been collected), using administrative resources and coercion, since the lists are open and refusal to sign could become the basis for political persecution;
• campaigning which rendered all candidates except A. Lukashenka practically invisible in the information space, and in support of A. Lukashenka, administrative and propaganda resources were used to simulate political activity and broad support, which can basically be called servicing the cult of A. Lukashenka;
• continuation of the practice of forcing voters to participate in early voting;
• a climate of intimidation with bans on photographing and taking out ballots, and several police officers on duty at all polling stations;
• opaque vote counting procedure;
• the reported record turnout figures (85.7%), including in early voting (41.81%), exceed the 2020 figures (84.38% and 41.70%, respectively), when the level of politicization and mobilization of society was significantly higher, which was evident from the queues at polling stations on election day;
• complete absence of independent observers.

It is impossible to conduct a free and open election campaign in a situation of ongoing political terror: the list of political prisoners is updated weekly and there are more than 1,200 people in it. The information space has been completely purged; almost all independent media outlets have been driven out of the country, and the dissemination of their materials from abroad is significantly hampered by the politically motivated abuse of anti-extremist legislation. The "state ideology" serves the cult of the authoritarian rule of A. Lukashenka. There is no recognition of the importance of political pluralism in the public field. Virtually all opposition political parties and political public organizations have been liquidated, and their leaders and many activists have been imprisoned or forced to leave Belarus due to the threat of arbitrary, politically motivated persecution. The repressive pressure on civil society organizations, especially human rights organizations, and their mass liquidation exclude civilian control over the conduct of elections. There is no independent civic monitoring of the elections within the country; only politically biased international observers are invited.

*For this statement and other documents of the "Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections" campaign, the term "elections*" in relation to the 2025 election campaign is used with an asterisk to emphasize the perfunctory nature of this term, since any free and fair election campaign presupposes, first of all, conditions where rights and freedoms are fully realized, including freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and association, the right to take part in the conduct of public affairs, freedom from discrimination, which is currently practically absent in Belarus.