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Belarus 2020 Presidential Election

August 9, 2020

The official result of 80.1% for Alyaksandr Lukashenko was found by an OSCE Moscow Mechanism rapporteur, the EU and others to be neither free nor fair, amid documented falsification and a mass post-election crackdown. This is a case of confirmed falsification.

Official results

Certified by Central Election Commission (CEC)Turnout 84.3%
  • Alyaksandr Lukashenko80.1%

    Official announced figure; widely assessed as not credible

  • Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya10.1%
Sources:12

The Integrity Ledger

What the evidence establishes, and what it does not — side by side, each finding sourced and tiered.

What is established

  • Result falsificationConfirmed

    The OSCE Moscow Mechanism rapporteur found the allegations that the election was not transparent, free or fair confirmed, referred to “the falsified presidential elections,” and recommended cancelling the results.

    Sources:1
  • Process violationsConfirmed

    Leading opposition contenders were barred or jailed before the vote, and ODIHR could not observe the election because Belarus failed to issue a timely invitation.

    Sources:12
  • Process violationsConfirmed

    A mass post-election crackdown followed; the UN found at least 37,000 people detained and documented torture and ill-treatment it assessed as widespread and systematic.

    Sources:1
  • Result falsificationConfirmed

    The European Parliament rejected the official results as conducted in flagrant violation of internationally recognised standards and refused to recognise Lukashenko as president after his term expired.

    Sources:1
  • Statistical anomaliesCorroborated

    Independent parallel-count initiatives comparing photographed ballots against official data concluded the announced result had been falsified, sampling a portion of polling stations.

    Sources:1

What is not established

  • Result falsificationAlleged

    The “true” outcome is not independently verified — authorities never published station-level protocols, and the parallel counts covered only part of the stations.

    Sources:1
  • Foreign interferenceAlleged

    No authoritative investigation established that a foreign state altered vote tallies; the documented falsification was attributed to Belarusian state bodies, with Russia’s established role being post-election political and security backing.

    Sources:1

Sources4

Official reportOSCE / rapporteur Prof. Wolfgang BenedekNovember 5, 2020
OSCE Moscow Mechanism rapporteur’s report on the 2020 Belarus presidential election
OriginalArchived
Official reportUN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), via UN NewsMarch 4, 2022
UN report on human-rights violations in Belarus around the 2020 election
OriginalArchived
Official reportEuropean ParliamentSeptember 17, 2020
European Parliament resolution rejecting the 2020 Belarus election results
OriginalArchived
JournalismBelTA (Belarusian state news agency)August 14, 2020
Belarus presidential election results finalized
OriginalArchived