Riots follow 'flawed' Belarus election
Source: Agencies |
December 21, 2010, Tuesday
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SEVEN election candidates and hundreds of opposition demonstrators were being held yesterday after police cracked down on a protest against the re-election of Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
Lukashenko accused demonstrators of banditry.
"There will be no revolution or criminality in Belarus," he said, adding that security forces had stood firm against "barbarism and destruction" by militants.
Lukashenko also described criticism by an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as amoral.
After a night of mayhem in central Minsk involving riot police and thousands of demonstrators, the central election commission declared in the early hours that Lukashenko, in power since 1994, had -secured nearly 80 percent of the vote.
Opposition parties say supporters of the 56-year-old former Soviet state farm director had rigged his re-election.
The OSCE mission described the election vote count as flawed and said police action against demonstrators had been heavy-handed.
"This election failed to give Belarus the new start it needed," said Tony Lloyd, head of the OSCE mission.
Lukashenko said the OSCE had no right to look at events outside the election itself. "We did everything asked of us," he told a news conference an hour after the OSCE verdict.
However, a parallel observer mission from the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States gave the election a clean bill of health.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the election was an "internal matter."
In a Belarus Interior Ministry statement, police justified their action, saying protesters had tried to storm the main government building in Minsk.
Lukashenko accused demonstrators of banditry.
"There will be no revolution or criminality in Belarus," he said, adding that security forces had stood firm against "barbarism and destruction" by militants.
Lukashenko also described criticism by an observer mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as amoral.
After a night of mayhem in central Minsk involving riot police and thousands of demonstrators, the central election commission declared in the early hours that Lukashenko, in power since 1994, had -secured nearly 80 percent of the vote.
Opposition parties say supporters of the 56-year-old former Soviet state farm director had rigged his re-election.
The OSCE mission described the election vote count as flawed and said police action against demonstrators had been heavy-handed.
"This election failed to give Belarus the new start it needed," said Tony Lloyd, head of the OSCE mission.
Lukashenko said the OSCE had no right to look at events outside the election itself. "We did everything asked of us," he told a news conference an hour after the OSCE verdict.
However, a parallel observer mission from the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States gave the election a clean bill of health.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the election was an "internal matter."
In a Belarus Interior Ministry statement, police justified their action, saying protesters had tried to storm the main government building in Minsk.
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