Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gave final approval on Wednesday to a law that grants him lifelong immunity from prosecution and bars opposition leaders living abroad from taking part in presidential elections.
In theory, the law applies to every president of the country and his family members, but in fact it currently only applies to Lukashenko, who is 69 years old and has ruled Belarus in an authoritarian manner since 1994. According to the text, it will not be possible to impeach the president for alleged crimes he committed in committed in the exercise of his office shall be prosecuted. The law also provides that the president and his family have a lifelong right to the security, health and life insurance, and medical care provided to the president during his term in office.
The rule also stipulates that only Belarusian citizens who have lived permanently in the country for the past twenty years can run in the presidential elections. The requirement excludes some well-known opposition figures from the next elections in 2025: the most important of which is Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has been living in Lithuania since 2020.
It is not the first time that Lukashenko has approved a measure of this kind: last September, for example, he passed a law that prevents Belarusian citizens living abroad from renewing their passports from abroad, forcing them to do so Return to Belarus or lose the ability to travel.
Lukashenko rules Belarus undemocratically. Among other things, he was accused in 2020 of manipulating the electoral processes that enabled him to win his sixth term as president on August 9 of that year: There were enormous protests in many cities that lasted for months and led to the arrest of thousands from people. He is also a very close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and therefore a key supporter of the invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022.