Monitors criticise elections as government backlash fears grow

EUROPEAN election monitors have declared that presidential elections in Belarus were flawed, but fear of brutal response from authorities makes a repeat of Ukraine’s Orange revolution look unlikely.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and the Council of Europe, said the election was neither free nor fair after 10,000 protesters huge numbers for the tightly controlled ex-Soviet state massed to denounce Sunday's election as rigged and support challenger Alexander Milinkevich.

A spokesperson for the OSCE said that the election, which returned incumbent President Aleksander Lukashenko to power for a third five-year term, "did not meet the required international standards for free and fair elections."

Speaking at a press conference yesterday, the OSCE's special co-ordinator, US Congressman Alcee Hastings, said: "It was not a fair playing field.

"The election was characterised by the widespread detention of opposition activists, newspaper seizures and the employment of an early voting system in which people have been pressured to vote for the regime.

The Belarus government has claimed that Lukashenko won 82.6% of a vote in which they say 92.6% of the population participated.

Underlying the election is a struggle for regional influence between Russia and the West, which is seen by Lukashenko's government and its backers in Moscow as a major culprit in the political upheaval in former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

Lukashenko hailed the result as "a bright and undisputed victory of the power of the spirit of the national dignity."

Main opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich, who received just 6% of the vote in the official count, described it as "an unconstitutional seizure of power" and has called for continued demonstrations.

"We want only free and fair elections. What happened here was a farce. We do not recognise this election, Milinkevich said."

The thousands who did attend protests on Sunday did so despite fearing they might be arrested, beaten or worse after increasingly hysterical statements from a regime which had stated that protesters would be dealt with as terrorists.

It had been thought that events in Belarus might follow a similar pattern to those which occurred in other ex-Soviet republics like Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, in which street protests led to the overthrow of the government.

Some still hope that this may happen in Belarus, but Lukashenko has warned against this possibility, saying: "I guarantee that there won't be a coup d'etat in this country" and warning protesters that "we will wring their necks, as you would a duck."

The opposition hopes for repeated demonstrations this week, but, as the international media depart, many fear that the repression promised by Lukashenko will be delivered and prove decisive.