Roundup: Lukashenko Set to Win Belarussian Election

Belarussian Presidential Election Declared Valid

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Belarussian election commission officials announced early Monday that the official results of Sunday's presidential election were most likely to be announced on Friday which indicate an apparent landslide victory of incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko.

Preliminary results, with 75 percent ballot counted, showed 47- year-old Lukashenko had won 78.4 percent of the votes, much higher than the 12.5 percent for his main opponent -- the opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik.

The third and the last candidate, Liberal Democratic Party leader Sergei Gaidukevich, collected only less than 3 percent.

Lydia Yermoshina, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission, declined to declare Lukashenko the outright winner until all votes are counted, but emphasized "the tendency is clear."

"There are no doubts about the honesty, fairness and openness of the polling," she said.

It is widely predicted Lukashenko would win a sweeping victory in the first round of the election.

Under the Belarussian constitution, a candidate will be considered elected if he gets more than 50 percent of the votes in a valid election with more than half of registered voters casting their votes.

The turnover of Sunday's election was 75.2 percent, far exceeding the necessary rate for a valid election.

Claiming victory before final results are due, Lukashenko told a press conference that his re-election is "brilliant, elegant and significant", noting that none of the international observer has stated serious drawbacks in the election.

Commenting on the record high turnout of 75.2 percent, the president said this showed that the Belarussian people "do not pay attention to the external pressure."

Lukashenko, who is likely to hold office for another five years, said he did not intend to radically reshuffle his government.

"There will be no overhaul, since there is no need for that," he said, but he did not rule out possible changes of individual ministers.

Over 7.2 million Belarussian cast their votes in Sunday's presidential election in 6,753 polling stations.

Some 715 international observers from 45 countries and international organizations monitored the voting process.

Over 1,000 journalists, a record number since Belarus became independent, have come here to cover the event.