Lukashenko sworn in for seventh term as Belarus opposition denounces election

# Lukashenko sworn in for seventh term as Belarus opposition denounces election

Alexander Lukashenko began another term in office after claiming 85.7% in January’s election, while exiled opponents marked the day abroad.

Alexander Lukashenko has been sworn in for a seventh term as president of Belarus, extending his more than three decades in power after an election that his critics denounced as tightly controlled and lacking genuine competition. The inauguration in Minsk was part ceremony, part political message: Lukashenko not only took the oath of office, he used the moment to mock his detractors.

AP reported that Lukashenko said Belarus had more democracy than countries that presented themselves as models and dismissed the label “Europe’s last dictator.” The report also said the Belarus Central Election Commission had declared him the winner of January’s presidential election with nearly 87% of the vote, while the working headline in the event file cites 85.7%. The exact percentage does not change the broader point: the outcome was an overwhelming official victory in a contest that opposition figures called a farce.

The ceremony also unfolded against a backdrop of exile and protest. Hundreds of opposition supporters living abroad held rallies in Lithuania on the same day to mark the anniversary of Belarusian independence in 1918. AP’s photographs showed opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya in Vilnius holding an image of her imprisoned husband, a reminder that political repression remains central to the Belarus story.

What matters here is not just one inauguration but the continuity it represents. Lukashenko’s opponents have been imprisoned, exiled or silenced over years of crackdown, and the AP report makes clear that the political field in Belarus remains heavily constrained. The ceremony at the Palace of the Independence in Minsk was therefore both a formal constitutional event and a demonstration of how power is exercised in the country.

The verified facts are compact but politically weighty: Lukashenko was sworn in again, opposition supporters protested abroad, and the government continued to present a highly managed election as a decisive mandate. The event date may be 2025-03-25, but the story it tells is the longer one of entrenched rule and a still-fractured opposition.

The official ceremony in Minsk also functioned as a signal to domestic and foreign audiences that the regime remains intact despite years of sanctions, protest and repression. Lukashenko’s public defiance in the inauguration speech was not accidental; it served to project certainty at the very moment critics abroad were highlighting the absence of political freedom at home.

The simultaneous demonstrations in Vilnius show how Belarus’s opposition has been pushed beyond its own borders. Exiled supporters can still stage rallies and mark anniversaries, but the contrast with the formal state ceremony in Minsk is sharp. One side controls the state apparatus, the courts and the ballot box; the other is reduced to symbolic protest abroad.

The election result cited in the evidence, nearly 87% in the AP report and 85.7% in the event file, underlines how tightly controlled the political environment remains. The difference between those figures is small enough that it does not alter the article’s central point: Lukashenko’s authority was reaffirmed by an official process his opponents reject.