February 4, Pozirk. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un congratulated Alaksandar Łukašenka on extending his 30-year-long rule in Belarus yesterday after the Belarusian Central Election Commission officially declared him the winner with 86.82 percent of the vote, KCNA reported.
North Korea became the 25th state to congratulate Łukašenka on his seventh term in office after the January 21-26 election that took place in a purged political landscape amid a new crackdown on regime critics.
Most of them, including Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe, issued their statements following the announcement of preliminary election results on January 27.
Belarus’ seventh presidential election drew severe criticism from democratic countries and the exiled Belarusian opposition for the lack of transparency and repressive environment.
Forty states, among them Australia, Canada, the European Union, New Zealand, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, have already dismissed it as a sham.
Belarus has not held a single free and fair election since 1996 by standards of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
