Dead and wounded after elections in Belarus

Riots broke out in several Belarusian cities last night after the announcement that president Lukashenko has won the presidential election for the sixth time. There has been at least one death and many injuries, says Human Rights Organisation Viasna to Reuters. 120 protesters were also arrested.

According to the Electoral Commission, Lukashenko received 80% of the votes. However, local journalists report large-scale ballot fraud. There were no international observers from the Organization for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE) welcome to the elections.

The main opposition candidate Svetlana Tichanovskaya, who would have received only 9.9% of the votes, did not recognize the result. A spokesman calls the outcome “far from reality”. President Lukashenko has not yet responded to the first results.

The opposition has tried in various ways to present its own results. For example, they claim that Tichanovskaya has won well on the basis of the shared results of twenty polling stations. There has also been a survey of Belarusians abroad: of the 13,248 participants in 25 cities, almost 86% voted for Tichanovskaya.

Even for Lukashenka’s supporters the result is not credible.

“The low percentage for Tichanovskaya is not proportional to the size of the demonstrations in recent weeks.”