Belarusian president signs decree allowing citizens residing in Russia to participate in local elections
Order allows permanent residents to elect, be elected to local self-government bodies
Belarusian President and presidential candidate Alexander Lukashenko casts his ballot at a polling station in the capital Minsk, Belarus on January 26, 2025.
ISTANBUL
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Tuesday signed a decree that could allow Belarusian citizens permanently residing in Russia to participate in the latter's local elections.
A statement by the presidency said the decree approved a draft protocol on amending a treaty between Moscow and Minsk on the equal rights of their citizens, which was signed in 1998.
The order allows permanent residents to elect and be elected to local self-government bodies.
Russians who are permanent residents in Belarus already have such electoral rights.
“This document is the result of targeted work carried out in Belarus to ensure equal rights of Belarusian and Russian citizens, including electoral rights, since, until now, citizens of Belarus permanently residing in Russia could not take part in local elections,” it said.
The Belarusian Foreign Ministry shall negotiate the draft protocol and sign it, according to the statement.
Russia and Belarus are formally part of a union state and have been in talks for years to move closer together, a process that has accelerated in recent years.
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