Belarus: Lukashenko re-elected as president with landslide victory

Alexander Lukashenko won his fifth term as a president of Belarus with a landslide victory as Head of Central Election Commission, Liliya Ananich, announced the final results from Minsk on Monday morning. Lukashenko "was supported by 83.49 percent or 5,095,000 voters of the Republic of Belarus," she stated during the press conference. At the second place is so-called 'against everyone' candidate. "Unfortunately during this election, the voters actually supported the 'against everyone' candidate more often while voting for alternative candidates," Ananich said, adding that, "the biggest number of protest voters was in Minsk" - 20 percent. The opposition candidate from the 'People's Referendum' Tatiana Karatkevich came in third with just over four percent. "The third place took Mrs. Karatkevich who was backed up by 4.2 percent of the voters in the country," Ananich told reporters. According to Central Election Committee, the voter turnout at presidential election surpassed 86 percent of registered voters. A total of 87.2 percent or 6,102,896 registered voters of the nearly 9.5 million population have cast their ballots on Sunday.