Fixed race as Belarus hardliner wins in canter

MINSK - The man America has dubbed Europe's last dictator appeared to have been re-elected President of Belarus by an improbable landslide.

Aleksander Lukashenko has won a suspiciously high number of votes in a contest marred by heavy-handed state repression.

State-sponsored exit polls released just two hours after voting began indicated that the hardliner who has ruled the former Soviet republic since 1994, had won 82.6 per cent of the vote on a turnout above 80 per cent.

In contrast, his closest rival, main Opposition leader Aleksander Milinkevic, was forecast to have won just 6 per cent of the vote.

A defiant Milinkevic said the Opposition would not recognise the result, called on his supporters to protest peacefully on the streets, and demanded a rerun.

"We will not recognise them and nor will democratic countries. This is already clear," he told reporters.

"People will laugh at those figures. In Poland people began laughing at the communist authorities and this is when Solidarity won. We are getting there," he said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if someone allowed himself to claim 120 per cent." Several thousand opposition supporters filled central Minsk chanting Milinkevic's name along with "Long live Belarus!", booing at a giant screen broadcasting fawning state coverage of the poll.

If and when confirmed, the results will hand Lukashenko, 51, a fresh five-year mandate to govern Belarus, a country of 10 million people, making him Europe's longest serving leader.

His victory was predictable as he controls all the levers of power and has turned Belarus into a cross between the Soviet Union of the 1950s and George Orwell's 1984.

His opponents were starved of publicity, hundreds of Opposition activists were arrested on spurious charges in the run-up to the poll, one of the rival candidates was physically beaten, and state media plugged just one candidate: Lukashenko.

Yesterday the former prison guard turned autocrat shrugged off criticism from America, which has labelled his country "an outpost of tyranny", denouncing United States President George W. Bush as "terrorist number one on the planet".

"We are holding an election for ourselves," he told state TV.

"The Belarussian people are masters in their own country.

"As for sweeping accusations, I've been hearing them for 10 years. I've already got used to them."

State TV broadcast footage of domestic and foreign Belarus-friendly election observers saying that the poll had been flawlessly fair.

Police said they had not recorded even one crime let alone an election-related incident.

Members of the public interviewed spoke of the holiday atmosphere and of the peaceful nature of voting, helpfully reinforcing Lukashenko's boast that he has brought unprecedented stability to Belarus in an uncertain post-Soviet world.

Many roads and businesses in the centre of Minsk were closed yesterday and policemen and security officials were conspicuously numerous.

Locals were told to stay off the streets for fear of violence.

A long convoy of military trucks was seen heading into the centre and policemen pulled over buses packed with what looked like Opposition supporters on the city's outskirts.

Belarus is run very much like the former Soviet Union of which it used to be part.

Over 80 per cent of the economy is state-controlled and the feared secret service is still called the KGB.

State television churns out a daily diet of anti-Western rhetoric.

It is also a criminal offence to "discredit" Belarus or insult the President, misdemeanours punishable by jail sentences of up to five years.

Though Russian President Vladimir Putin displays little personal warmth towards Lukashenko, Moscow effectively props up his regime.

Russia guarantees Minsk's loyalty by selling it billions of dollars of subsidised oil and gas every year.

STATE CONTROL

* Belarus borders European Union members Lithuania and Latvia to the north and Poland to the west and ex-Soviet states Russia and Ukraine to the east and to the south.

* Population is about 9.751 million. The capital is Minsk.

* Belarus ("White Russia") became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. A drive to revive the Belarussian language and culture was crushed by President Lukashenko. He reinstated many Soviet-era symbols, including a flag and coat-of-arms.

* The economy is run on command lines. The Government orders companies what to produce and at what prices to sell. Private property is outlawed. Key sectors are oil refining, chemicals and machine-building. Russia is the main trading partner.

* Belarus is a republic with the President elected for five-year terms. The President appoints the Government. Lukashenko changed the constitution via a referendum in 2004 to enable him to run for a third term.

- INDEPENDENT