EU rejects Belarus election, threatens new sanctions

The European Union on Sunday dismissed Belarus’s election as illegitimate and warned of new sanctions against the regime. The vote, widely seen as a pre-arranged process, is expected to hand 70-year-old authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term, extending his three decades of rule.

“This sham election in Belarus was neither free nor fair,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and enlargement commissioner Marta Kos said in a joint statement.

“The relentless and unprecedented repression of human rights, restrictions to political participation and access to independent media in Belarus, have deprived the electoral process of any legitimacy,” Kallas and Kos said.

They urged the Belarusian government to release political prisoners, estimating their number at more than 1,000, including an employee of the EU delegation in Belarus’ capital, Minsk.

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Kallas also criticised Minsk for its “the involvement of the Belarusian regime in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its hybrid attacks against its neighbours”.

Lukashenko is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who allowed Moscow to use his country as a launchpad for its 2022 invasion.

Kallas and Kos said that the decision to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe only 10 days ago prevented the group from monitoring the full electoral process.

“For these reasons, as well as the involvement of the Belarusian regime in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its hybrid attacks against its neighbours, the EU will continue imposing restrictive and targeted measures” against the Belarusian government, the EU officials said.

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They didn’t elaborate on what eventual new sanctions would target, or provide a time frame.

Kallas and some EU foreign ministers are expected to meet Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Sunday night in Brussels for an informal, closed-door dinner.

With inputs from agencies