By Gvantsa Machitidze
BA International Relations Student at Anglo-American University, Prague
November 2025 • 5-Minute Read

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Why do people vote in an election that has predetermined results? Manipulating the elections is one challenge, but voters supporting authoritarian office is another paradox worth studying. Generally, the distinctive line between democracy and authoritarianism heavily falls on the elections. Most commonly autocrats use a combination of 3 pillars: legitimation, repression, and co-optation to stay in power as long as possible. Nevertheless, the Lukashenka phenomenon in Belarus is a uniquely layered case where the absence of real opposition and repression alongside economical co-optation has been occurring since 1994 (Marples, 2007, p. 63). Explanations vary from case to case depending on the autocrat’s aim, the historical and cultural settings of the country, and people’s level of living. This essay will provide the definitions of 3 pillars, analyze voters in Belarus, and finally argue that the voter’s dilemma in an authoritarian regime with a repressive ambience concludes in loyalty to the regime.

Staying in power ultimately needs ways to reassure the continuation of the power in the regime, whereas election is one of the well-practiced democratic façades in authoritarian regimes nowadays. Since legitimation, as Johannes Gerschewski suggested, is a “process of gaining support which is based on an empirical, Weberian tradition of ‘legitimacy belief,’ free from normative connotations and therefore does not run counter to the oxymoron criticism (Weber’s aim)” (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 18). Legitimation can come from the international spectrum, from the people, or from the economic sectors. While co-optation is sometimes a tool to gain legitimation, it is a “capacity to tie strategically relevant actors to the regime elite” (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 22), which differs from legitimation with its character. A regime or authoritarian power decides who is worthy of co-optation due to the needs of the regime and on account of “more strategic action, in which both the ruling elite and the elite to be co-opted weigh their individual costs and benefits” (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 26). Most commonly military power and business elites are co-opted, usually with seats in the parliament.

This essay’s core argument—repression practices differently in a variety of authoritarian regimes, most commonly with the help of fear, is that it “functions by reproducing power asymmetries between the ruler and the opposition” (Gerschewski, 2013, p. 26). Analyzing repression practices has become one of the most sophisticated topics of research, while state repression is

the actual or threatened use of physical sanctions against an individual or organization, within the territorial jurisdiction of the state, for the purpose of imposing a cost on the target as well as deterring specific activities and/or beliefs perceived to be challenging to government personnel, practices, or institutions (Davenport, 2007, as cited in Gerschewski, 2013, p. 21).

On some occasions, repression may not necessarily occur towards the population, as it can affect opposition powers, which creates a setting where people are indirectly repressed and so forced to vote for the authoritarian regime. While these pillars explain the authoritarian power’s motives for conducting elections, which is not always as clear as explaining people’s participation in such processes, the democrat’s dilemma (Isiksel & Pepinsky, 2025, p. 1) targets voters in authoritarian regimes who have democratic values and envision participation in elections as a crucial role of a citizen, which targets the sector of the population who are against authoritarianism but are dubious about the decision of participating in the elections. Fear is a cornerstone of repression in many ways. People’s fear of not participating in the elections is high since,

Under authoritarianism, by contrast, citizens cannot know whether voting for the opposition will help or hurt the prospects of a more democratic future. The supercharged uncertainty of political action under authoritarianism neither obviates the need for citizens to exercise their judgment in light of the best information available to them nor absolves them of the responsibility to do so (Isiksel & Pepinsky, 2025, p. 5).

The mix of fear factors, as mentioned before, is defined by the aim of the regime, which may not be the Belarus case, since “Lukashenka has no vision” (Marples, 2007, p. 116). This should make the regime’s durability very short, but paradoxically, Lukashenka has been president of Belarus since 1994. How did he manage to stay in power for so long? Or rather, how did he manage the support of the population? Highlighting the fact that his regime conducted elections alongside the regime and managed to win every time, despite the rigorous views on him, his practices could be argued as a successful authoritarian regime.

One of the reasons people tend to vote for Lukashenka is the absence of opposition and uncertainty. It’s common that authoritarian regimes, most of the time, do not tolerate opposition parties to exist in political reality, and “in individual cases, the political repression has been severe, such as the case of the disappearance of four political activists in 1999 and 2000” (Bedford, 2021, p. 813) in Belarus. Authoritarian elections are a means to co-opt the opposition parties (Gandhi & Lust-Okar, 2009, p. 405), which is the path that has no place in Lukashenka’s politics. The omnipotent role of people in elections makes Belarus an extraordinary case since “an authoritarian political system survives and prospers mainly because its citizens let it happen—as a result of their political apathy and resigned acceptance” (Gel’man, 2010, p. 809), albeit this does not necessarily conclude it as their independent choice. Propaganda in Belarus is another way of manipulating citizens’ votes. The illusion of Lukashenka’s ill-defined idea of patriotism and protectionism, while the opposition threatens Belarusian identity, is what’s forcing him to see the safest and the most stable choice for more than 2 decades (Marples, 2007, p. 116).

Consequently, while co-optation may play a big role in authoritarian strategies, modifying citizens’ mentality through repression is the most consistent approach that worked in Belarus. Lukashenka, by triggering voters’ dilemma to participate in ballots and harshly repressing opposition and election fraud, achieved somewhat stable propagandistic views on him. The formula that would explain the situation in Belarus would be fear from the lenses of repression, blocking every alternative option, and manipulating people with maneuvering perspectives.

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Bibliography

Bedford, S. (2021). The 2020 presidential election in Belarus: Erosion of authoritarian stability and re-politicization of society. Post-Soviet Affairs, 37(8), 809–828.

Davenport, C. (2007). State repression and political order. In J. Gerschewski (Ed.), The three pillars of stability: Legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes (p. 21). [Original work published in 2007].

Gandhi, J., & Lust-Okar, E. (2009). Elections under authoritarianism. Annual Review of Political Science, 12, 403–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.060106.095434

Gel’man, V. (2010). The dynamics of subnational authoritarianism: Russia in comparative perspective. Demokratizatsiya, 18(1), 52–67.

Gerschewski, J. (2013). The three pillars of stability: Legitimation, repression, and co-optation in autocratic regimes. Democratization, 20(1), 13–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2013.738860

Isiksel, T., & Pepinsky, T. B. (2025). Voting in authoritarian elections. [Working paper].

Marples, D. R. (2007). The Lukashenka phenomenon: Elections, propaganda, and the foundations of political authority in Belarus. Ibidem Press.