by Our Foreign Desk

BELARUSIAN President Alexander Lukashenko has been re-elected for a fifth term with an increased share of the vote, the country’s election commission announced yesterday.

It said Mr Lukashenko had won 83.5 per cent of the vote on an 87 per cent turnout.

The high turnout was attributed to the introduction of an early voting system, with ballots cast up to five days before Sunday’s polling deadline.

Disgruntled opposition leaders claimed electoral fraud.

Several parties had boycotted the election. But barely a hundred people joined a protest against the outcome.

The president had said before the election that he would be concerned if he did not improve on his 79.7 per cent showing in 2010.

Dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by Western media, Mr Lukashenko has won every presidential election in the former Soviet republic since 1994 with an increased share of the vote.

Russian President Valdimir Putin congratulated Mr Lukashenko on his victory.

Following the announcement of the result, the two leaders held talks on establishing a Russian military base in Belarus, said Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

After casting his vote on Sunday, Mr Lukashenko urged neighbouring Ukraine to stop armed citizens crossing into Belarus after border guards detained some 200 people in just a week.

“We are fed up with stopping them at the border — with shells, bats, guns, ammunitions,” he said. “Can’t we live in peace?”