AlHijjah 28, 1436, October 12, 2015, SPA -- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won 80 per cent of the vote Sunday in his re-election bid to a fifth term, exit polls showed, according to dpa. Dozens of his dissidents held a demonstration in the capital, Minsk, to protest the election. Security forces watched but did not disperse the rally. About 40 per cent of voters cast their ballots ahead of election day, the Electoral Commission reported Saturday, prompting concerns from opposition representatives who said undue pressure had been placed on civil servants, students and hospital patients to vote early. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has criticized previous Belarusian elections for security gaps in pre-voting. Elections officials were due to report the vote count on Monday. Turnout was more than 80 per cent even before polls closed. Many Belarusians see the country's economic problems and the deadly pro-Russian rebellion in neighbouring Ukraine as reason enough to re-elect the incumbent for the sake of stability. "I voted for Lukashenko because there is no alternative," a voter, who identified herself as Olga, 45, said at School 73 in eastern Minsk. A September survey by a respected Belarusian pollster, the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies, forecast that Lukashenko would get 64 per cent of the vote. The three challengers on the ballot all fell in single digits, according to the exit surveys. Leading opposition candidate Tatiana Korotkevich of the Tell the Truth party finished second, but far below the 20-per-cent threshold she had hoped to reach. The other two candidates were considered pro-government. The election came just days after Belarusian author and investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature. A strident voice against the Belarusian regime, Alexievich fled the country in 2000 but was able to move back more than a decade later. Speaking Saturday in Berlin, the 67-year-old dissident said that Lukashenko was sure to win. She cited late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's saying that it doesn't matter who votes, just who counts the votes. "For freedom, you need free people, and we don't have those yet," she said. Alexievich said Lukashenko had called her personally to congratulate her, which was "a little odd." The opposition had hoped they would benefit from Alexievich's win in Sunday's polls. The last presidential election in 2010 was overshadowed by mass riots in Minsk after the vote. Blamed for that unrest, three of the candidates - including runner-up Andrei Sannikov - were sentenced to at least five years in prison. There was no sign Sunday of protests at a similar scale. Belarus' relations with the European Union have improved lately. EU sources said Friday that the bloc was preparing to temporarily ease sanctions on Belarus. Often called Europe's last dictatorship, Belarus has boosted international ties by releasing political prisoners and contributing to peace deals for the Ukraine crisis. As he voted Sunday, Lukashenko said the EU plans to ease sanctions were a sign that the West "has see that Belarus is a normal country." In Berlin, the German Foreign Ministry said that the election was a "test case" for the possible expansion of European ties with Belarus.
