Europe's last Dictator declared winner of Belarus presidential election

         

The Belarus election commission reported on Monday that President Alexander Lukashenko won 80.23% of the vote while the opposition candidate Svetlana  Tikhanovskaya took 9.9%, despite a popular wave of support for the opposition candidate, whose political rallies have drawn some of the country’s largest crowds since the days of the Soviet Union. The ex teacher  Tikhanovskaya, 37, is the wife of the president's rival arrested and barred from standing. 

The election preliminary results released on Sunday with Lukashenko as the winner has prompted unprecedented protest in the country. Lukashenko, 65, who is dubbed Europe's last dictator has been in power for 26 years. He has vowed to quash any protest over the result.

“I will believe my own eyes – the majority was for us,” Svetlana Tikhanovskaya told reporters in the capital, Minsk, on Monday, after widespread reports of vote-tampering in Sunday’s election.

Tikhanovskaya said she considered herself the election winner not Lukashenko, and described the election as massively rigged. Her aides said the opposition wanted a vote recount at polling stations where there were problems. They also said the opposition wanted to hold talks with authorities about how to bring about a peaceful change of power.