Police, protesters clash after Belarus presidential election

Belarus police and protesters clashed across Belarus Sunday night following the country's presidential election in which the country's longtime leader sought a sixth term despite rising discontent with his authoritarian rule and the government's tackling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Protesters in the cities of Minsk and Brest marched through the streets, and several people were detained by police.

Tensions have been rising for weeks ahead of Sunday's vote in the ex-Soviet nation, which pitted President Alexander Lukashenko, who has held an iron grip on Belarus since 1994, against four others.

The campaign has generated the country's biggest opposition protests in years, with supporters arguing that they suspect election officials will manipulate the results of Sunday's vote to give the 65-year-old Lukashenko a sixth term.

Officials had already denied two prominent opposition challengers places on the ballot, jailing one on charges he called political and prompting the other to flee to Russia with his children.

The main opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, came under heavy pressure over the weekend as eight members of her staff were arrested, and one of her top aides fled the country on Sunday.

Belarusians weary of the country's deteriorating economy and Lukashenko's repression of the opposition coalesced around Tsikhanouskaya, an former teacher and the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, in large shows of support unusual for a country where crackdowns on dissent are routine.

Preliminary results are not expected until Monday, but even before the last polls closed the head of the Central Elections Commission announced fragmentary results, saying voters in hospitals and sanatoria in five of the country's six regions had given Lukashenko 82% of their support.