MINSK: Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was on track to extend his 31 year rule with 87.6 percent of the vote in a presidential election on Sunday (Jan 26), according to an exit poll broadcast on state TV, after hurling defiance at the West and defending the jailing of dissidents.
The close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has led Belarus since 1994. The US and European Union both said in the run up to the election that it would be a sham because independent media are banned in Belarus and all leading opposition figures have been sent to penal colonies or forced to flee abroad.
Challenged over the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko told journalists that they were the authors of their own fate.
“Some chose prison, some chose ‘exile’, as you say. We didn’t kick anyone out of the country” he told a marathon press conference lasting more than four hours and 20 minutes.
He said no one was prevented from speaking out in Belarus, but prison was “for people who opened their mouths too wide, to put it bluntly, those who broke the law”.
The exit poll was broadcast by state TV soon after voting closed. Officials said turnout was 81.5 percent in the election, in which 6.9 million people were eligible to vote.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on the eve of the vote that it was a “blatant affront to democracy”.
Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya told Reuters this week that Lukashenko was engineering his re-election as part of a “ritual for dictators”. Demonstrations against him took place on Sunday in Warsaw and other east European cities.
