The Guardian couldn’t help but suggest, quoting some unnamed observers, that this Sunday's election in Belarus is “expected to be a flawed vote as in past elections”.
However, it added that “most agree Lukashenko would win even without cheating after the tumultuous events in neighboring Ukraine.”
“The economic situation has got worse, but everyone understands there are no worthy candidates besides Lukashenko,” the newspaper quotes one of the voters, named Alexander, who is an employee of the state-owned Minsk tractor works, as saying.
“I was in Ukraine this summer and compared life there to here. People live very modestly there,” it quotes another voter, Natalya, an engineer at the tractor works as saying. “The people tried for a better life but it only gets worse.”
“People killing each other over their beliefs, we definitely don’t need that,” says another engineer named Sergei.
The official results are expected to give President Lukashenko about 80% of the votes, like last time, the outlet quoted some anonymous observers as suggesting.
President Lukashenko, who was dubbed by some Western journalists as the last dictator in Europe for his “authoritarian style of government”, has been in the office since July 1994.
