“It is quite obvious that the sovereignty of the Republic of Belarus irritates the West. We, in both the Russian Federation and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), respect Belarusian sovereignty, we value it very much and we will always support it,” the senator said when commenting on the critical Western statements on the elections taking place this Sunday.
The coordinator of one of the international observer groups for the Belarusian presidential elections added that the cause of the collective agitation of the West lies in the political course of the country’s current leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
In this regard, Kosachev noted that Minsk had created all the conditions for the free expression of the citizens’ will and described the organization of the electoral process as excellent.
The Central Election Commission of Belarus previously announced that more than 5,300 polling stations are operational, ready to receive some 6.9 million citizens registered in the electoral register to exercise their right to vote. Voting will end at 8:00 p.m., local time.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is running to secure a seventh consecutive term since 1994.
Oleg Gaidukevich, head of the Liberal Democratic Party; Alexander Khizhnyak, chairman of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice; Sergei Syrankov, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; and Hanna Kanapatskaya, former 2020 presidential candidate and non-party businesswoman, are the other four candidates who, along with Lukashenko, are racing for the country’s presidency.
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