Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won 80.23 per cent of the vote in the country’s presidential election, while his main rival won nearly 9.9 per cent, according to preliminary results.
Belarusian opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya had earlier refused to accept state media projections that gave her a similarly limited vote share.
Police violently cracked down on protests that erupted in major cities on Sunday night after the polls closed.
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Lidia Yermoshina, head of the Belarusian Election Commission, announced on Monday that Tikhanovskaya had come second, with the other three candidates receiving fewer than 2 per cent of the vote.
Turnout was put at 84 per cent.
Over 50 people were detained in Minsk and more than 120 had been detained nationwide in the unrest, human rights organization Viasna said.
Lukashenko, 65, has led the former Soviet republic in Eastern Europe, between Russia and EU member Poland, for a quarter century, tolerating little dissent.
