2015 Belarusian presidential election Sunday Oct 11,2015

 

Belarusians head to the polls on Sunday in elections many predict will see strongman President Alexander Lukashenko easily re-elected to a fifth term.

Compared to the elections of December 2010 - which ended in the arrest of opposition leaders and political activists as widespread protests flared against what many called a rigged vote - this year's campaigning has been fairly mundane.
 
Both Lukashenko's supporters and those hoping for an end to the Belarusian president's 20-year reign see him slated for five additional years in office. 

Under Lukashenko's leadership, Belarus has been routinely referred to as the "last dictatorship in Europe". The country's civil and political rights record is among the poorest globally. Reporters Without Borders' Press Freedom Index ranks Belarus 157 out of 180 countries

As of 5 October, Belarusian Electoral Commission accredited 910 international observers to monitor the 2015 presidential election. Of these, 382 observers represent the Commonwealth of Independent States and 344 observers represent the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Pro-Lukashenka political parties and organisations within Belarus supplied another 28,578 observers.

The official date for Belarus’s presidential election is 11 October. But if past elections are any guide, every third Belarusian will vote during the so-called “early voting” period, between 6 and 10 October.
In fact, 30 percent of Belarusians cast their ballots by the evening of 9 October, according to the Central Election Commission of Belarus.

In the 2010 election, 32 percent of Belarusians voted early. The share of early ballots was largest in provincial areas. In Minsk, a city with over 30 institutions of higher education and a student population of nearly 200 thousand, only 22 percent of votes were cast early, which is below the national average.


In the 2010 Presidential Election incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko  was declared the winner by the Central Electoral Commission with 79.67% of the votes,though opposition supporters decried the election. 
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe(OSCE) called the election "flawed", saying it fell well short of democratic standards