Poll boycott likely to invalidate Belarus election

MINSK, Belarus -- Officials say voters stayed away from polling stations in large numbers in a general election, invalidating many results and delivering a rebuke to President Alexander Lukashenko.

Ivan Likach, secretary of the Central Electoral Commission, said that only 38.8 percent of voters had cast ballots in Minsk by 1500 GMT, two hours before polls closed.

He said there was no chance of the figure clearing the 50 percent needed to make Sunday's vote valid.

"The election has not been validated in any of Minsk's 18 constituencies," he said. "New candidates are to be designated and a new vote held within three months."

Belarus's liberal and nationalist opposition had called for a boycott of the election, dismissing it as a farce and saying that the 110-member assembly would be meaningless in view of Lukashenko's broad powers.

Lukashenko is largely shunned by the West for dissolving parliament and extending his stay in power following a 1996 referendum.

The United States has already said it will not recognise the vote and West European countries have expressed serious misgivings.

Voting began on Sunday morning with the 10 million people in the former Soviet republic being asked to choose a new lower house of parliament.

More than 550 candidates were competing for 110 seats.

It is the first parliamentary election since Lukashenko -- the last communist-style ruler in Europe -- dissolved the previous legislature in 1996 and replaced it with lawmakers loyal to him.

Opinion polls had indicated that 60 percent of people would not vote.

The president, who says Belarussians are "communal and socialist" and want stability, has threatened to crack down on the opposition to avoid a popular uprising like that which forced Slobodan Milosevic to step down in Yugoslavia.

"There is no confrontation in our country -- neither racial nor religious. There are no wars on our land," Lukashenko told a group of senior officials from European organisations. "Name another post-Soviet state which can boast the same values."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Belarus National Assembly

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