Belarus Claims Rout of Opposition in National Polls

MINSK, Belarus — No opposition candidate won a seat in the Belarusian parliament with nearly all the districts counted, the head of the elections commission said early Monday.Although there is the possibility that some opposition members could still make it in, the major opposition candidates ran in districts where the vote has already been counted and thus were shut out. None of the opposition candidates running in the remaining districts is well known.“The voter is afraid of losing what he has,” the Central Election Commission head, Lidia Yermoshina, said; results were released from 99 of the 110 voting districts.Today’s election was seen as a major test of authoritarian President Lukashenko’s commitment to democratic reforms.Opposition leaders had insisted the vote was already rigged, despite promises by Mr. Lukashenko that international voting standards were followed.The Belarusian leader welcomed more than 400 election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to prove his country is embracing democratic reforms. In national elections four years ago, the opposition wasn’t even allowed to run.“It will be very difficult for the observers not to recognize these elections,” Mr. Lukashenko said after casting his ballot Sunday.A total of 263 candidates, including 70 from the opposition, were competing for the 110 parliamentary seats.As soon as the polls closed, about 500 opposition supporters turned out on the central square of the capital to protest the vote. Many carried European Union flags.“We are tired of living in fear, we are tired of repression,” Natalya Kurilovich, 34, said. “I’m tired of Lukashenko stealing votes. I want a European future for my children.”A couple hundred young protesters marched to the headquarters of the KGB, the country’s secret police, and chanted “shame” outside the building before moving on and eventually returning to the main square.“Young people want to live in Europe and are ready to fight for this,” one of the organizers of the march, Artur Finkevich, said.The protest ended peacefully about three hours after it had begun. No uniformed police were visible, but there appeared to have been plainclothes officers among the crowd.Opposition protests in the past have often been crushed by police in scenes that have helped earn Belarus a reputation as Europe’s last dictatorship. But today, authorities appeared to be trying to avoid the sight of protesters being beaten or arrested.Opposition members complained that an early voting system meant observers would have trouble assessing the elections. Early voting began Tuesday, and more than 25% of about 7 million eligible voters had cast ballots before today, the Central Election Commission said. Final turnout was 75%, it said.“You can’t call it a real election when students, soldiers and workers are forced to vote early and when nobody is guarding the ballot boxes for five nights,” the leader of the opposition United Civil Party, Anatoly Lebedko, said.However, Mr. Lukashenko — an open admirer of the Soviet Union who has run Belarus with a heavy hand since 1994 — has made some efforts to appease critics from abroad, including freeing several opposition figures considered political prisoners by the West.The attempt to improve relations with the West apparently reflects concerns about Belarus’s over-reliance on neighboring Russia, which has begun scaling back the preferential energy deals that have helped keep the Belarusian economy afloat.The West has been more receptive to Mr. Lukashenko’s overtures after Russia invaded Georgia, another small former Soviet republic on its border.America and the European Union say they are watching today’s election carefully and promise to consider lifting sanctions imposed on Belarus if Mr. Lukashenko shows he is serious about allowing more political competition.“European public opinion has placed high hopes in this election and is expecting positive results,” the coordinator of the OSCE observers, Ann-Marie Lizin, said. The observers will give their assessment of the election tomorrow.The opposition appeared split on how the West should respond to the election.“This election poses a moral dilemma for the E.U. and U.S. — either to go forward with the doubtful project of reeducating Lukashenko or remaining true to democratic principles,” a leader of the Belarusian Popular Front, Vintsuk Vyachorka, said.A leading opposition member who was among the prisoners released last month, Alexander Kozulin, said the West should not slam the door on the Belarusian government but “teach it how things are done in the civilized world.”But many Belarusians, particularly the elderly, credit Mr. Lukashenko with maintaining stability and preventing major economic calamity following the 1991 Soviet collapse.“Lukashenko for 14 years has shown that he is a people’s president, and we won’t allow the opposition to interfere,” an 84-year-old, Grigory Gurevich, said, proudly displaying his military medals as he voted.

Belarus Claims Rout of Opposition in National Polls

Belarus Claims Rout of Opposition in National Polls

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