Lukashenko in his pocket convincingly won the elections in Belarus, which the West despises Reuters

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule with a landslide victory in a presidential election dismissed as fraudulent by Western governments, according to preliminary results on Monday.

“You can congratulate the Republic of Belarus, we have elected a president,” the head of the Republic’s Central Election Commission, Igor Karpenko, said at a press conference in the early hours of Monday morning, according to Russian state media.

According to the results published on the Telegram account of the Central Election Commission, Lukashenko won 86.8 percent of the votes in Sunday’s elections.

European politicians said the election was neither free nor fair as independent media were banned in the former Soviet state and all leading opposition figures were sent to penal colonies or forced to flee abroad.

“The people of Belarus had no choice. This is a bitter day for all those who yearn for freedom and democracy,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced on X.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski expressed mock surprise that “only” 87.6 percent of the electorate appeared to support Lukashenko.

“Will the rest end up in prisons?” he wrote on X.

Asked about the jailing of his opponents, Lukashenko said they “chose” their fate.

“Some chose prison, some ‘exile’, as you say. We didn’t throw anyone out of the country,” he said at a stormy press conference on Sunday that lasted more than four hours and 20 minutes.

A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin previously defended his jailing of dissidents, saying: “I don’t care about the West.”