In a school hall on the outskirts of Minsk, an unusual event is taking place. It’s a week before Belarus’s presidential election and voters are questioning an opposition candidate about the legitimacy of her campaign.

“I came here to make sure you’re not a KGB agent,” says one woman in the audience of about 50 people. Then a man asks why he should vote at all when the results are sure to be falsified.

The candidate’s reply does little to instil confidence. “The regime counts the votes for itself,” says Tatyana Korotkevich, the only presidential challenger claiming to represent Belarus’s democratic opposition. “If a different candidate wins it will know, and it won’t be able to ignore us. Then I will be able to continue agitating for peaceful changes,” she adds.

The event is unusual in Belarus because there are few government critics standing for election – and there is not much campaigning going on. There was one televised debate, but President Alexander Lukashenko, who no one doubts will emerge victorious after Sunday’s vote, did not take part. He doesn’t hold rallies, answer questions or go out of his way to meet voters at all.

“He doesn’t need to,” says Korotkevich. “He’s on the screen every day anyway. The conditions for this race aren’t fair.”

Lukashenko, the self-declared authoritarian president famously dubbed the last dictator in Europe, is certain to win a fifth term, and some wonder why Korotkevich was allowed to stand against him. Other opposition leaders have accused her of serving as a sparring partner to provide legitimacy to the process.

Although observers expect a flawed vote as in past elections, most agree Lukashenko would win even without cheating after the tumultuous events in neighbouring Ukraine.

Tatyana Korotkevich on the campaign trail. She claims to be the only candidate representing the democratic opposition. Photograph: Tell the Truth

“The economic situation has got worse, but everyone understands there are no worthy candidates besides Lukashenko,”says Alexander, an employee of the state-owned Minsk tractor works who, like most Belarusians speaking to the media, will give only his first name. The government owns 80% of all industry, and many workers equate Lukashenko with job security.

But as low oil prices and the Russian financial crisis push the country into recession, real wages are falling. Former central bank head Stanislav Bogdankevich says this will intensify unless Lukashenko restructures his ineffective economic model, which subsidises loss-making state enterprises with profits from refining and selling cheap Russian oil.



Yet there is no mood for rebellion. In a country where Russian state news channels are even more popular than their Belarusian counterparts, the conflict in Ukraine is seen as a warning.

“I was in Ukraine this summer and compared life there to here. People live very modestly there,” says Natalya, an engineer at the tractor works. “The people tried for a better life [by protesting and bringing down the pro-Russia government], but it only gets worse.”

Another engineer, Sergei, agrees: “People killing each other over their beliefs, we definitely don’t need that.”

The question is not who will win the election, but whether, when he does, Lukashenko will introduce reforms to move towards the west or fall further into Moscow’s tight embrace.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with a heavy hand since 1994 and delivered GDP growth every year until 2015 – despite being criticised in the west for human rights abuses, including the stifling of independent media and the arrests and mysterious disappearances of critics.

After the last election in December 2010, riot police had to disperse thousands who took to the streets to protest against a result that awarded Lukashenko nearly 80% of the votes.

International observers called the process flawed, and hundreds of demonstrators were beaten and sent to jail. Several opposition leaders were also jailed, including Lukashenko’s rival candidate, Andrei Sannikov.

Lukashenko pardoned Sannikov in 2012, and in August he released six jailed opposition figures including his most prominent critic, Nikolai Statkevich. In response, the EU is now reportedly considering lifting sanctions and a travel ban on Lukashenko.

Before Sunday’s election, Sannikov and Statkevich dismissed the apparent thaw as an attempt to win western money. “If you saw Lukashenko in New York [for the UN general assembly], his first meeting was with IMF head Christine Lagarde,” Sannikov said. “That shows he needs money – that’s why he released prisoners. I’m happy for them but it doesn’t change anything.”

Alexander Lukashenko and his son, Kolya, with Barack and Michelle Obama during the UN general assembly in New York. Photograph: Lawrence Jackson/AFP/Getty Images

Belarus has been struggling to pay nearly $4bn in foreign debt due this year. Although Moscow allowed Minsk to delay payment of $1.2bn until next year, President Vladimir Putin has also been pushing for the establishment of a Russian airbase in Belarus that would bring the country still further under his influence and the positioning of his warplanes closer to Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

This week Lukashenko said Belarus “didn’t need a [Russian] base at the moment” and suggested Moscow’s proposal was meant to make Europe “doubt that we want a normalisation of relations”. But he has played the west off against Russia before, and Moscow already has fighter aircraft stationed in its smaller neighbour, as well as a radar station and a submarine communications centre.

Lukashenko’s behaviour has split the opposition. While Statkevich, who is not eligible to stand because of his conviction for “organising mass riots”, has been calling for a boycott off the vote, another group, Speak the Truth, has registered Korotkevich, a political unknown, in the race. Her platform calls for “peaceful changes” but she keeps her criticisms of Lukashenko polite.

Tatyana Korotkevich at a meeting in Mogilev, eastern Belarus. Photograph: Tell the Truth

Few expect that Korotkevich, who has had only a month to campaign, will make an impact. A September survey predicted Lukashenko would get 64% and Korotkevich 25% of the vote.

But observers suggest the official result will give him about 80%, like last time. Sergei Musiyenko, a political analyst who advises Lukashenko, says officials pad the count so it is not seen as too low.

A repeat of 2010’s mass protests, however, is unlikely. Recent opposition rallies attracted hundreds, rather than thousands, of supporters, and a gathering has been planned for Saturday to discourage people from going out on the day of the vote.

After five years without any viable opposition, Belarusians are afraid, says Statkevich — whose five-year prison term served as a warning.

Analyst Yaroslav Romanchuk says that after the elections Lukashenko will be forced to introduce economic reforms as part of his quest for western loans. But there’s a limit to how much of a western ally Belarus can ever be, Sannikov adds.

“It was not coincidence that Putin launched plans to have a military airbase in Belarus before Lukashenko gets elected,” he says. “He wanted to show the west that Russia was still in charge, and if you recognise Lukashenko you recognise Russia’s dominance.”