Belarusians voted on Sunday in an election that was set to hand another five years in power to President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia's Vladimir Putin. Read more at straitstimes.com.

Russian, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko casts himself as a plain-spoken strongman and "president of the ordinary people".

The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from campaign posters across Belarus on Sunday as the country held an orchestrated election virtually guaranteed to give the 70-year-old autocrat yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

As Belarus votes amid repression, what drives Alexander Lukashenko, the president likely to secure a seventh term.

The independent U.S.-based think tank said that the Kremlin is in "the endgame" of its plans to take over its neighbor.

With many of his political opponents either jailed or exiled abroad, the 70-year-old Lukashenko is back on the ballot, and when the election concludes on Sunday, he is all but certain to add a seventh term as the only leader most people in post-Soviet Belarus have ever known.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko pardoned 15 prisoners yesterday in what state media called a humanitarian gesture, two days before an election in which he is set to further extend his 31-year rule.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is all but certain to extend his more than three decades in power in Sunday’s election that is rejected by the opposition as a farce after years of sweeping repressions.

Since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia’s economy has surpassed expectations. But some experts say this image of resilience is a mirage crafted by the Kremlin.

Voting started following a period of almost non-existent election fever. In the capital Minsk, there’s an almost total absence of billboards promoting the candidates and there has been little in the way of campaigning.