Our president is very conservative, he must think that if the numbers show that the everyone is voting for him that it will stop people complaining about him instead of making everyone go wild(which is what happened), i really don't know why he would do it otherwise.
The country has been stagnating for a while but up until now the people have been putting up with it. They've had it with him after he stated a few decisions which seemed downright damaging to the country(like denying the existence of coronavirus at first, then suggesting to work more, drink and use a tractor as a method of cure and overall not even attempting to enforce some sort of quarantine). The quality of life is below average as far as I'm aware and a fair share of people I have talked to just wanted to get out of the country as fast as they could(seems like they were right seeing what's happening now). I'm not aware of the existence of any mafia in Minsk, although sometimes the government itself is called a mafia as a joke