Thousands protest disputed Belarus elections

SEVERAL thousand opposition supporters gathered on a main square in central Minsk last night as polls closed in a disputed presidential election.

The crowd hooted when a large video screen showed a live statement from the head of the Central Election Commission, who hailed the vote - in which hard-line President Alexander Lukashenko was expected to be awarded a landslide win - as a success with minimal violations.

There were fears of violent confrontation as Alexander Milinkevich had called on supporters to come to the square to protest the vote, whose official results he said he will not accept. The government had warned that election-day gatherings would not be allowed.

About 3,000 people were in the square when polls closed. They blew horns and chanted "Milinkevich!" - echoing the much larger crowds in Kiev during Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, which has inspired the opposition in neighbouring Belarus.

Despite the government ban on protests, there was no immediate move by police to disperse the crowd.

Hours after two Belarusian organisations said initial exit poll results indicated Mr Lukashenko would get more than 80% of the vote, Mr Milinkevich said: "People will laugh at those figures. In Poland people began laughing at communist authorities and this is when Solidarity won. We are getting there."

The state has mounted a campaign of threats and allegations of violent, foreign-backed overthrow plots that its opponents say is aimed at frightening people off the streets and justifying the potential use of force against protesters.

On Thursday, the head of the Belarus state security service, the KGB, accused the opposition of plotting to seize power with foreign help by detonating bombs and sowing chaos on election day, and warned that protesters could be charged with terrorism.

One of the exit polls indicated that Mr Lukashenko had 82.1% of the vote and Mr Milinkevich just 4.4%.

The Russian head of an election observer mission from the Moscow-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States, Vladimir Rushailo, said the monitors saw no serious violations.

An observer team from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is to release its preliminary findings today.

Western countries have forged close ties with the opposition and made no secret of their contempt for the ruler of what Washington calls an outpost of tyranny in Europe. It labelled the campaign as "seriously flawed and tainted".

Russia, wary of losing its only ally between it and NATO countries, has signalled approval of a Lukashenko victory.

Many Belarusians see the 51-year-old former collective farm manager as having brought stability after the uncertainty that followed the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Even independent opinion polls suggested Mr Lukashenko, who has pushed through a referendum scrapping term limits and hinted he plans to stay in office indefinitely, could win a majority of the vote.