(MENAFN- Saudi Press Agency)Moscow Dhu-AlHijjah 28 1436 October 12 2015 SPA -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won 80 per
cent of the vote Sunday in his re-election bid to a fifth term exit
polls showed according to dpa.
Dozens of his dissidents held a demonstration in the capital Minsk
to protest the election. Security forces watched but did not disperse
the rally.
About 40 per cent of voters cast their ballots ahead of election day
the Electoral Commission reported Saturday prompting concerns from
opposition representatives who said undue pressure had been placed on
civil servants students and hospital patients to vote early.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has
criticized previous Belarusian elections for security gaps in
pre-voting.
Elections officials were due to report the vote count on Monday.
Turnout was more than 80 per cent even before polls closed.
Many Belarusians see the country's economic problems and the deadly
pro-Russian rebellion in neighbouring Ukraine as reason enough to
re-elect the incumbent for the sake of stability.
"I voted for Lukashenko because there is no alternative" a voter
who identified herself as Olga 45 said at School 73 in eastern
Minsk.
A September survey by a respected Belarusian pollster the
Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies
forecast that Lukashenko would get 64 per cent of the vote.
The three challengers on the ballot all fell in single digits
according to the exit surveys.
Leading opposition candidate Tatiana Korotkevich of the Tell the
Truth party finished second but far below the 20-per-cent threshold
she had hoped to reach. The other two candidates were considered
pro-government.
The election came just days after Belarusian author and investigative
journalist Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Prize for
Literature.
A strident voice against the Belarusian regime Alexievich fled the
country in 2000 but was able to move back more than a decade later.
Speaking Saturday in Berlin the 67-year-old dissident said that
Lukashenko was sure to win. She cited late Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin's saying that it doesn't matter who votes just who counts the
votes.
"For freedom you need free people and we don't have those yet" she
said.
Alexievich said Lukashenko had called her personally to congratulate
her which was "a little odd."
The opposition had hoped they would benefit from Alexievich's win in
Sunday's polls.
The last presidential election in 2010 was overshadowed by mass riots
in Minsk after the vote. Blamed for that unrest three of the
candidates - including runner-up Andrei Sannikov - were sentenced to
at least five years in prison.
There was no sign Sunday of protests at a similar scale.
Belarus' relations with the European Union have improved lately. EU
sources said Friday that the bloc was preparing to temporarily ease
sanctions on Belarus.
Often called Europe's last dictatorship Belarus has boosted
international ties by releasing political prisoners and contributing
to peace deals for the Ukraine crisis.
As he voted Sunday Lukashenko said the EU plans to ease sanctions
were a sign that the West "has see that Belarus is a normal country."
In Berlin the German Foreign Ministry said that the election was a
"test case" for the possible expansion of European ties with Belarus.
--SPA
02:52 LOCAL TIME 23:52 GMT
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