Berlin, 23 October 2024 (dpa/MIA) - Belarus is to hold its next presidential election on January 26, the central electoral commission announced on Wednesday.

The head of the commission, Igor Karpenko, called it an "optimal date," according to the state news agency Belta.

Legally, the election could be held as late as July 2025. Observers said they assumed the winter date was chosen to make it more difficult for people to protest.

Authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko has governed the former Soviet republic since 1994 and has made his country Russia's closest ally.

His re-election in August 2020 was overshadowed by allegations of fraud and widely disputed, with the few reliable results available suggesting a victory for opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The European Union no longer recognizes Lukashenko's legitimacy.

Following the election in 2020, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets against Lukashenko. Authorities broke the protests up using force and hundreds of government opponents have been in custody ever since.

Lukashenko attended a summit of the BRICS economic bloc in the Russian city of Kazan on Wednesday, while the defence ministries of the two countries discussed military cooperation in the Belarusian capital Minsk.

MIA file photo