Belarus Presidential "Election" 2010

[Tender Branson]

Belarus is voting in presidential elections, with the incumbent Alexander Lukashenko widely expected to win.

Under the authoritarian leader aiming to secure his fourth term, the former Soviet republic has never held a poll seen as fair by international monitors.

However, these elections so far have been much freer than in the past, correspondents say.

But the opposition still plans to hold protests against what they say will be a rigged vote.

Security forces have warned they will crack down on any attempts to stir tension during or after the voting.

Polling stations across Belarus opened at 0600 GMT and will close at 1800 GMT.

Nine challengers are competing with Mr Lukashenko for the presidency.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12029814

[Tender Branson]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[Insula Dei]

There was some footage of a belgian observer in our TV journal and it seemed legit.

One look at the results once more teaches us that to seem isn't to be.

[Nhoj]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12029814 looks like protests have broken out. Probably nothing will happen though as he seems to have a fairly strong hold and a fair amount of actual support.

[Insula Dei]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/20/alexander-lukashenko-belarus-president-election

Situation seems to be cooling down, but was quite hot during the night, or so it seems.
Also, his main opponent now is down to 2.56% of the vote. Why do these eastern dictator-types always cock up so badly when messing with votes?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think it's because they like the idea of winning with such laughably high percentages...

[minionofmidas]

"They"? Who besides Lukashenko are we talking about?

[Insula Dei]

Well, there was Ahmadinejad's uncanningly strong result in the last Iranian elections, for starters,...

[GMantis]

Map of election results:

Made from the preliminary results here.
http://www.rec.gov.by/pdf/prb2010/sved20.pdf

It doesn't show from the map, but there is an relative east-west divide in Belarus as well; relative being the key word as the difference between the regions is only 5%, and Lukashenko's worst results is of course in Minsk. It's interesting if there would be a greater divide under a free election.