MOSCOW: Belarus has held a presidential election for the seventh time in the country's history. Five candidates were running for the ...
MOSCOW: Belarus has held a presidential election for the seventh time in the country's history. Five candidates were running for the post of the head of state, including Alexander Lukashenko, who has been the country's permanent leader for more than 30 years. According to the exit poll of the Belarusian Youth Organizations Committee, Lukashenko won with 87.6% of the vote.
TASS has compiled the most important information about the election.
Voting
- On Sunday, January 26, polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. local time (5:00 a.m. GMT) and closed at 8:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT).
- Approximately 6.9 million Belarusian voters were able to cast their ballots at 5,325 polling stations.
- In addition to Lukashenko, entrepreneur Anna Kanopatskaya, Liberal Democratic Party Chairman Oleg Gaidukevich, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Belarusian Communist Party Sergey Syrankov and Republican Party of Labor and Justice Chairman Alexander Khizhnyak were running for the highest state office.
- The Belarusian authorities did not record any crimes or malicious acts in the presidential election during the main voting day, Central Election Commission Chairman Igor Karpenko said.
Exit poll data
- Lukashenko wins the presidential election with 87.6% of votes, according to the exit poll of the Belarusian Youth Organizations Committee.
High turnout
- The turnout at the early voting, which took place from January 21 to 25, amounted to 41.81% of voters.
- The final turnout at 8:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT) was 85.7%.
International reaction
- The presidential election in Belarus was open and transparent, the media had an opportunity to objectively assess their progress, Russian State Duma Deputy Chairwoman and CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Observer Group Coordinator Victoria Abramchenko said.
- Russian Federation Council Deputy Speaker and CIS Interparliamentary Assembly Observer Group Coordinator Konstantin Kosachev said that Belarus has held an ‘A+’ election.
- The people of Belarus do not give to attempts to destabilize the situation in the country, CIS Secretary General and Observer Mission Head Sergey Lebedev pointed out.
- Belarusian Central Election Commission Secretary Yelena Baldovskaya said that she did not understand how the European Union could comment on the presidential election without seeing how it was held and without knowing how it was organized.
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