DISINFO: Western polls confirm Lukashenka's victory in presidential election in Belarus
SUMMARY
In Belarus, Westerners conducted sociological research, where Belarusians unequivocally stated that no Tsikhanouskaya had ever won the election. And they admit that the current president is definitely the winner.
RESPONSE
The claim that "Westerners" allegedly conducted research confirming the victory of Lukashenka in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election is not supported by any evidence. No recent known Western researches confirm this claim.
In October 2020, Chatham house published a poll on Belarus. When the respondents were asked how they voted, only 20.6% of respondents said they voted for Lukashenka, while 52.2% said they cast their vote for his opponent Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Another survey was conducted in March 2021 by the German Center for Eastern European and International Studies (ZoiS). According to this poll, 53% of those polled said that they voted for Tsikanouskaya, and 65% believe that the election results were falsified in favour of Lukashenka. There were only 18% of those who voted for him among respondents.
The European Union does not recognise the results of the vote and rejects the legitimacy of Lukashenka’s regime. On 19 August 2020, the European Council called Belarusian elections neither free nor fair and later applied restrictive measures against Lukashenka and his inner circle.
Background information:
In August 2020, Belarusians took to the streets to protest the results of a rigged presidential election. The protests soon became the largest in the country’s history and were eventually violently suppressed, with tens of thousands arrested, beaten and prosecuted. Extensive disinformation campaigns continue to enable and accompany the brutality of Aleksandr Lukashenka’s regime against its own citizens, independent media and civil society.