Lukashenko landslide protested

MINSK, Belarus — An expected landslide vote for President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko drew several thousand Belarussians into the streets on Sunday, as protesters ignored swirling snow and official threats of arrest to denounce the election as a clumsily orchestrated sham.

With 32 percent of ballots counted shortly before midnight Sunday, Lukashenko, a former collective farm boss already in office 12 years, had won 88 percent of the total, said the secretary of the central election commission, Nikolai I. Lozovik. That figure exceeded even the state's own surveys of voters leaving the polls and hardened Lukashenko's opponents' assertions that the results were fraudulent.

"They say we want a revolution," the leading opposition candidate, Aleksandr Milinkevich, told thousands of protesters who gathered, peacefully, in October Square as the polls closed at 8 p.m. "No. We want only free and fair elections. What happened here was a farce. We do not recognize this election."

According to the announced results, Milinkevich trailed in a distant second, with 4 percent — far below the level U.S.-financed polls had recently indicated he might receive.

The protest, drawing several thousand despite the snow and bitter cold, was the largest in years against Lukashenko, who is often denounced here and abroad as the last dictator in Europe. The protesters waved flags — including the former national flag, now banned, and that of the European Union, officially scorned — and chanted slogans demanding freedom.

"All they are saying is lies," said Tatyana Agechich, as official statements were being broadcast on a large-screen television in the square, accompanied by jeers. Agechich is an engineer who said she lost her job for disloyalty to Lukashenko's government.

Although the authorities banned Election Day rallies and the country's security service — still known as the KGB — warned that anyone causing disturbances could face charges of terrorism, the protest passed without the violent crackdown that many feared.

Scores of police officers and security troops assembled in buses on side streets but did not intervene. At times the protesters — estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 — broke into chants, "The police are with us."

Milinkevich addressed the crowd from the steps of the neo-classical Palace of Trade Unions, near the building where officials were announcing the results. A second opposition candidate, Aleksandr V. Kazulin, joined him in ridiculing the declared outcome.

Acknowledging the genuine popularity that Lukashenko does have, however, Kazulin demanded only a second round of voting, which is required if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote.