A delegation from Iran's Ministry of Interior, led by the Director General of the Elections Office, has arrived in Minsk to serve as international observers for Belarus's presidential election on Sunday.
The Iranian delegation plans to visit polling stations in the capital to closely monitor the electoral process.
Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, is seeking his seventh term in office.
The election has been widely criticized by opposition figures and international observers as lacking genuine competition. Many opposition leaders are either imprisoned or in exile, leading to allegations that the election is a mere formality to extend Lukashenko's rule.
The European Parliament has denounced the election as a sham, urging the international community not to recognize its results and to support the Belarusian people's pursuit of democracy and human rights.
Iran's own electoral process has been criticized by international observers, including Freedom House, which has noted the influence of Iran's Guardian Council, an unelected body that vets candidates, as a key factor limiting the country's democratic standards.
Freedom House says of Iran's democratic process: "The Islamic Republic of Iran holds elections regularly, but they fall short of democratic standards due in part to the influence of the hard-line Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies all candidates it deems insufficiently loyal to the clerical establishment. Ultimate power rests in the hands of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the unelected institutions under his control."
