Belarusians head to polls for presidential election

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Belarusians on Sunday began heading to the polls for the country’s presidential election, with incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko seeking a seventh term in office.

Voting began at 8 a.m. local time (0500GMT) and the 5,325 polling stations will remain open throughout the country until 8 p.m. local time (1700GMT).

Just over 6.9 million Belarusians are eligible to vote in the election and early voting took place on Jan. 21-25.

According to the Belarusian Central Election Commission (CEC), 41.81% of the country’s electorate took part in the early voting process.

On Saturday, Igor Karpenko, the chairman of Belarus' CEC, said that nearly 500 international observers have been accredited to monitor the presidential election.

Lukashenko, who has been in office since winning the country’s first presidential election in 1994, is one of five candidates running for president.

The other candidates are Oleg Gaidukevich, the chairman of Belarus' Liberal Democratic Party, Sergey Syrankov, the head of the country's Communist Party, Alexander Khizhnyak, the leader of the Republican Party of Labour and Justice, and Hanna Kanapatskaya, an independent who also ran for president in the 2020 election.