Parliamentary elections and a referendum authorising Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko to run for a third term in office fell badly short of international standards, Western monitors said today.
"Our overall conclusion is that the Oct. 17 parliamentary election fell significantly short of (international) standards," said Mr Tone Tinsgard, head of the observer mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
"Democratic freedoms were largely disregarded by the authorities."
Mr Tinsgard said the staging of the referendum, which endorsed Mr Lukashenko's plan to change the constitution and run for a third term, "contributed to a highly distorted campaign environment".
Mr Lukashenko won overwhelming approval in a referendum to run for a third term in office, according to a Belarus election official.
Ms Lidiya Ermoshina, head of the Central Election Commission, claimed 77.3 per cent of registered voters had backed Mr Lukashenko's proposal to remove a constitutional provision limiting him to two terms. The vote will enable him to run again in 2006.
Mr Lukashenko, who has run the ex-Soviet state since 1994, needed 50 per cent of seven million voters to alter the constitution.
Ms Ermoshina described the turnout of 90 per cent as "unprecedented".
But Mr Lukashenko's liberal opponents, speaking before the polls closed, said the vote was subject to unprecedented cheating and intimidation.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe had said the poll was threatened by a "climate of fear", a lack of debate and eroded media freedoms. It had 300 observers at polling stations.
The Soviet-era farm boss used referendums in 1996 to prolong his stay in power a first time and dissolve parliament. That and all elections since were denounced in the West as fraudulent.
State television, controlled by the authorities, had showed a succession of sports and cultural figures throughout the evening praising Mr Lukashenko for ensuring stability and a measure of prosperity 13 years after the collapse of Soviet rule.
Western countries accuse Mr Lukashenko of hounding his opponents, interfering in the election process and closing down independent media outlets. They have condemned his refusal to abandon Soviet-style command economics.