Belarusian President re-elected for fifth term

International media report that electoral officials say that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has convincingly won his fifth term, according to preliminary results.

According to reports, Lukashenko has secured nearly 84% of the vote in Sunday's election, with none of the three other candidates achieving more than 5%, amid a turnout of 86.75%.

Lukashenko, 61, has governed the former Soviet republic almost unchallenged for 21 years and no veteran opposition leaders stood as they were not allowed to register claiming that the vote would not be free or fair.

The BBC reports that dozens of opposition supporters held a protest march in the capital Minsk after the polls closed, carrying slogans that read "Boycott the dictatorship!" and "Lukashenko - go!"

Critics have accused the president and his supporters of stopping the main opposition parties from building any public profile and diminishing their access to state-owned media and this year's Nobel Literature Prize laureate, Svetlana Alexievich, has also warned that her country is a "soft dictatorship".

US officials have described Lukashenko as "Europe's last dictator", but there have recently been signs including the pardoning of six opposition leaders - that suggest Lukashenko is attempting to improve relations with the West.