Preliminary statistics released early on the 27th by the Belarus Central Election Commission show that the current president of Belarus, Lukashenko, won the presidential election held on the 26th with 86.82% of the votes.
Lukashenko, unsurprisingly, has been re-elected for the seventh consecutive time. He has been in power since 1994.
Apart from Lukashenko, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus Tserankov, the chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party Gajdukevich, entrepreneur Kanopatskaya, and the chairman of the Labor and Justice Party Khizhnyak received 3.21%, 2.02%, 1.86%, and 1.74% of the votes respectively.
Nevertheless, the EU and Belarus opposition labeled the election as a “farce” and a “scam,” and the EU stated it would continue to maintain sanctions against the Lukashenko regime.
According to Belarus law, the president is elected by direct popular vote, and the candidate who receives more than 50% of the votes is directly elected president.
The Belarus Central Election Commission will announce the final vote count no later than February 5.
The previous presidential election in Belarus was held in August 2020, where Lukashenko won with 80.1% of the vote.