2024 Belarusian parliamentary election



Parliamentary elections were held in Belarus on 25 February 2024. The country elected 110 deputies to the lower house of parliament (House of Representatives) and about 12,000 representatives of local councils.

There were no opposition candidates in these parliamentary campaigns — all contenders come from four registered political parties, each of which is pro-government, or pro-government independents. The Belarusian opposition called for boycotting the elections or voting against all. The Belarusian authorities refused to invite observers from the OSCE.

Background
The elections were the first since the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests against the authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in office since 1994. Lukashenko warned that the authorities had "learnt our lesson" since the protests and that there would be "no rebellions" during the election. A month before the election, the Belarusian KGB launched a series of raids targeting the families of political prisoners. Observers and human rights organizations have noted that since the protests, the regime has thoroughly "cleansed" the political landscape, and that conditions for free elections are "currently practically absent in Belarus."

On 29 January 2024, at the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, Lukashenko expressed confidence that the voting will be held calmly. "The period is so difficult, but, as you can see, it passes calmly. And I'm sure we'll approach these dates calmly and hold these events just as calmly." Days before the election, Lukashenko accused the West of trying to use "new triggers to destabilize the society" and claimed that Polish authorities were trying to convince senior Belarusian officials to switch their allegiance as part of a coup plot. Belarusian political analyst Valery Karbalevich noted that Lukashenko was treating the election like a "military operation", with authorities seeing any vote "as a threat and a pretext to step up repressions and tighten the screws."

Electoral system and conduct
The 110 members of the House of Representatives were elected from single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting.

On 16 February 2023, the Law "On Amendments to the Electoral Code of the Republic of Belarus" was adopted. According to the law, the minimum voter turnout threshold was abolished and a ban on photographing the ballot paper was introduced. In addition, polling stations for voting abroad were abolished and additional requirements for parliamentary candidates were introduced (including a ban on dual citizenship). The Interior Ministry conducted drills during which police detained offenders photographing ballots and creating artificial queues outside polling stations.

Early voting was held from 20 to 24 February 2024 with turnout reaching over 40% according to authorities. The Viasna Human Rights Center said that students, soldiers, teachers and other government employees were forced to participate in early voting. Authorities later said that total turnout reached 73%.

Participating parties
In February 2023, the Belarusian government changed the legislation on political parties. The minimum number of members was increased from one to five thousand, the obligation to have structures in all country regions and other tightening norms were introduced. In Summer-Autumn 2023, the Belarusian authorities conducted a mass "re-registration" of political parties, as a result of which only 4 out of 15 parties remained registered. 11 other parties - mostly opposition parties - were legally liquidated at the request of the Ministry of Justice of Belarus. The initiator of the party changes was President Lukashenko, who in April 2022 announced about "the upcoming big work in party building and bringing order in public associations" and demanded to rewrite the legislation. And in December he said that "only those parties should work in the political field of the country, the activity of which corresponds to the basic principles of domestic and foreign policy". The political parties that were allowed to run in the elections have supported Lukashenko's policies.

Observers
Since 1995, no election in Belarus has been recognized as free and fair by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For the 2024 election, its observers were not allowed to participate in the election, marking the third consecutive time that the organization was prevented from doing so in Belarus. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry said that the "reasons for this are clear and simple," namely "the traditional dominance of representatives of Western countries in OSCE missions," the imposition of "unjustified and tough" sanctions by Western countries and the "deterioration of logistical opportunities" in the movement of its citizens to and from the country. The Central Election Commission of Belarus instead issued invitations to election commissions in other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States and delegates from the Association of World Election Bodies. It also accredited representatives from 23 European Union member states, including from Germany, Poland and Lithuania, whose identities and affiliations were not disclosed. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization also sent a mission to observe the vote.

Results
The CEC stated that the results of the election will be established by 1 March 2024.

Elected deputies
On 26 February 2024, the Central Election Commission of Belarus published a preliminary list of elected deputies of the House of Representatives of the eighth convocation.

Reactions
On election day, Lukashenko announced that he would run again for president in the 2025 elections.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Lukashenko's exiled opponent in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, called for a boycott of the election, saying that "there are no people on the ballot who would offer real changes because the regime only has allowed puppets convenient for it to take part". She also called on the international community not to recognize the results of the election. Tsikhanouskaya's video message was broadcast on 2,000 screens used for street advertising across Belarus after opposition activists managed to gain access to them, leading to the arrests of some employees of the firm which owned the screens. Members of the Belarusian opposition have popularly referred to the elections as (Бязвыбары), in reference to the tight government control over elections.

Russian president Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko on "the confident victory of patriotic forces of Belarus", which he said helped to "ensure internal political stability."

The United States Department of State condemned the elections, describing them as being "held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic."