Europe's 'last dictator' gets his way

Belarusians overwhelmingly approved a referendum on scrapping presidential term limits, the Central Elections Commission announced today, allowing the authoritarian leader of the former Soviet republic to seek a new term in 2006.

Opposition figures claimed that yesterday’s vote was rigged in order to allow Alexander Lukashenko, often branded as Europe’s last dictator, to stay in power. He has led the nation of 10 million since 1994.

Central Elections Commission Chairwoman Lidiya Ermoshina more than 77% of registered voters approved dropping the term limits and that nationwide turnout was nearly 90%.

“It is a convincing victory. I consider it an elegant victory,” Ermoshina said.

Controversy arose after a government-endorsed exit poll showing the measure passing was released while the polls were still open. Under Belarusian law, exit poll results cannot be announced until voting is over to avoid influencing those who haven’t cast their ballots.

State television broadcast the exit poll results throughout Sunday, and Ermoshina insisted that the election law had not been violated.

Another exit poll, conducted by the independent Gallup Organization/Baltic Surveys, had only 48.4% of 37,602 respondents saying they voted to scrap presidential term limits, short of the simple majority needed for the measure to pass. The rest voted against, threw out their ballots or refused to answer.

Ermoshina dismissed the independent poll’s results as lacking credibility. “We stand comfortably by our reputation,” she said at a news conference.

The European Union and the United States had previously expressed strong doubts that the vote, in which Belarusians also cast ballots to fill the largely powerless 110 seat House of Representatives, would meet democratic standards.

The elections filled 107 parliamentary seats, but none of the opposition candidates made it into the house. “That means they didn’t have the people’s support,” Ermoshina said.

Lukashenko, 50, whose second term expires in September 2006, has not said whether he would run again, but he is widely seen as wanting to hold on to power.

He has led the nation on an anti-West, isolationist path since he was first elected president in 1994. Washington and the EU have refused to recognise Belarus’ previous parliamentary and presidential elections, saying they were neither free nor fair.

“Turn to your own problems and resolve those,” Lukashenko said to Western countries on Sunday. “You don’t need to worry so much about us.”

Lukashenko’s government has cracked down on dissent, harassed the opposition and the independent media, maintained an inefficient Soviet-style central economy and been suspected of involvement in the disappearance of four opposition figures.

At a polling station in Minsk, many early voters expressed dismay at Lukashenko’s move to stay in power by changing the constitution.

“I saw them on television every night telling me to be a patriot and make the right choice,” said Nikolai Glozkov, 40. “I am a patriot, but right now our country is standing in place and not moving forward, so I voted against.”

Yulia, a 42-year-old woman who declined to give her last name, cast a yes vote in the village of Zhukov Lug. ”We support Lukashenko. Why shouldn’t we? Life is getting better,” she said.

The opposition, which brought together anti-Lukashenko Communists and liberals, saw 40% of its candidates stripped from the ballots. Opposition leaders said their observers were barred from some voting stations and denied the right to ensure no one tampered with ballot boxes from pre-election day voting.

A Russian TV reporter, who had co-authored a book critical of Lukashenko, was found badly beaten at a Minsk hospital last night, hours after police detained him amid accusations that he attacked two people outside a café, said opposition journalist Svetlana Kalinkina.

The journalist, Pavel Sheremet, previously worked in Belarus’ opposition media and spent months in jail for his reporting. Interior Minister Vladimir Naumov as saying Sheremet was detained Sunday for hooliganism, but Kalinkina said he was attacked.