OPPOSITION leader Alexander Milinkevich said yesterday that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko must be excluded from any rerun of presidential elections.

Thousands of Belarusians demonstrated in a central Minsk square for the third night in a row tonight, swelling the ranks of a core group who spent the previous night there to protest at the extension of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko’s rule.

Hundreds of demonstrators shivered and cheered through a frigid night and morning snowfall on a Minsk square, trying to keep up momentum in an arduous and unlikely drive to overturn election results.

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, declared the overwhelming winner of weekend elections, said today that his opponents had failed to topple him in a foreign-backed “revolution".

Belarus’ main opposition candidate demanded a new vote today as President Alexander Lukashenko stormed to victory by a massive margin.

The main Belarusian opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, tonight called for new presidential elections as thousands of his supporters jammed a main square in central Minsk to protest the ballot that authorities said would hand incumbent Alexander Lukashenko a huge victory.