Alexander Lukashenko's victory was never really in doubt. Having ruled Belarus with an iron hand  for the past 12 years, the country's president was expected to win Sunday's election by a landslide, and that he did. The official tally by the Central Election Commission gave Lukashenko a massive 82.6 percent of the votes, according to the Associated Press. "President Lukashenko has been reelected," said the commission's broadly smiling Lidiya Yermoshina, who claimed "not one complaint" had been filed.



Tolerating little dissent in this ex-Soviet republic of 10 million, Lukashenko's regime had banned gatherings on election day. However, several thousand supporters of the main opposition candidate Alexander Milinkevich still braved freezing weather and possible arrest by the secret police -- still known as the KGB here -- to denounce the election result. "We demand new, honest elections," Milinkevich told the crowd gathered on Minsk's snow-covered Oktyabrskaya Square. "This was a complete farce."

The Associated Press estimated the crowd to be around 10,000 strong, including some demonstrators who waved European Union Flags. Milinkevich called on the protestors to return on Monday evening to continue to put pressure on the government. But it's unclear whether Belarus can follow the example set by Ukraine and Georgia, where peaceful mass demonstrations helped catapult progressive opposition leaders to power after disputed elections.

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown only lukewarm support for Lukashenko, the Kremlin appears set to back him for fear of seeing a western oriented government take over in Minsk. Considered safely pro-Russian in Moscow and a dictator in the West, foreign reaction to the outcome of the vote varied accordingly.

The leading official of group of officials from former Soviet states sent to Belarus to observe the elections on Monday said that the presidential poll had been open and transparent. According to the AP, Vladimir Rushailo, head of the Commonwealth of Independent States' election observers, said the organization's 467 observers concluded that, despite some technical violations, the vote took place within the requirements of Belarusian law.

EU: Sanctions likely

Conversely, the European Union presidency said on Monday that the group's foreign ministers would meet to consider possible sanctions against Belarus. "The climate of intimidation and hindering of the opposition from doing their work was upsetting," Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country hold's the rotating EU presidency, said according to Reuters.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said "some action is now likely." The first expected sanction would be the imposition of an EU travel ban on Minsk government leaders.

Poland, which borders Belarus, said it would ask the EU to sharpen sanctions against Belarus after the opposition denounced its elections as a blatant fraud. "We will propose the strengthening of sanctions. It is evident that Belarus elections were not free and democratic. The EU must act," Poland's deputy foreign minister, Stanislaw Komorowski, told Reuters.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which monitors elections, was due to give a verdict on the vote later on Monday.

mry/ap/reuters