The autocrat Alexander Lukashenko won 87.6% of the vote according to an official exit poll. The exiled opposition called for the result not to be recognized.

Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state for 31 years, held a four-hour press conference musing that some of his opponents "chose prison", after winning 88 per cent of the vote.

Britain on Monday imposed sanctions targeting Belarusian officials and defence companies after joining Western governments in condemning what they called "sham" presidential elections in the country.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union rejected the election in Belarus on Sunday as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions. Belarus held an orchestrated vote virtually guaranteed to give 70-year-old autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

No credible opponents were allowed to run against Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since the 1990s.

Belarus' opposition activists and Western officials on Monday denounced an orchestrated election that extends the more than three-decade rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko. The country's exiled opposition leader called the result “sheer nonsense.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won a seventh consecutive term in office Sunday in an election denounced by the European Union and the country's exiled opposition. With all his opponents in prison or living in exile abroad,