Elections-2025: “Standby” Candidates of the Regime

The ruling class continues to shape an updated electoral system, depriving opponents of political rights. Lukashenka is expanding political activity for loyalists, granting carte blanche for presidential candidates from systemic parties and GoNGOs. The dictator’s sparring partners are meant to ease tensions and highlight Lukashenka’s appeal to the electorate. Through repression, the ruling class forces regime critics to ignore the political campaign.

Regime loyalists have launched a large-scale “Nado” flash mob in support of Lukashenka. The ruling class is testing a new format for conducting the presidential campaign—without candidates from the democratic movement.

Over the past four years, Lukashenka’s regime has further restricted opponents’ political rights, including both passive and active electoral opportunities. Citizens in exile cannot participate in voting, and opponents of Lukashenka have virtually no chance of fielding their candidates for the presidential race. Any activity by opposition candidates faces obstacles or dangers, such as disqualification on formal grounds or the threat of imprisonment. Recall that presidential candidates with mobilization potential have traditionally been imprisoned since 2006. After 2020, prison terms for popular presidential contenders have significantly increased: 14 years for former banker Babaryka and 18 years for former entrepreneur Tsikhanouski.

However, the ruling class is expanding the practice of nominating sparring partners for the presidential elections. The registration of pro-regime candidates in single districts was tested in local and parliamentary elections long before the Unified Voting Day in 2024. Sparring partners for Lukashenka were also nominated in the 2006 and 2015 elections. Loyalists were allowed to lightly criticize the regime to divert votes from democratic candidates. Yet in the 2025 campaign, no nominees from the democratic movement are expected.

The ruling class is borrowing from the Russian playbook: leaders of parliamentary parties are being allowed into the race—Syrankou (Communist Party), Haidukevich (LDP), and Khizhnyak (RPPS). A Belarusian innovation is the inclusion of GoNGO candidates: Bobrykau from the Belarusian Union of Officers and Chamadanava from the Belarusian Women’s Union.

The authorities plan to test the reaction of democratic forces and Western capitals to the potential re-nomination of Hanna Kanapatskaya. The former presidential candidate notably criticized other pro-democratic nominees, especially Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, in 2020.

So far, propaganda projects involving defectors from the democratic movement, like the “Voskresensky Democratic Forces Round Table” and the “Resocialization Consultant Protasevich,” have failed to disintegrate the democratic forces. Tsikhanouskaya continues to lead in shaping the civil society agenda, although tensions and debates within democratic forces about strategies for engaging with the regime are periodically intensifying.

The ruling class expects the protest audience to ignore the elections: widespread repression is already yielding results by demotivating Lukashenka’s opponents. Former presidential candidate and ex-political prisoner Dzmitryeu sees no point in fielding democratic candidates for the 2025 elections.

Thus, the main scenario for the campaign involves registering at least three sparring partners for Lukashenka. This is necessary to diffuse the electorate’s attention and ensure the sparring partners do not gain excessive political influence.