Belarus’ strongman President Aleksandr Lukashenko secured his seventh term with an expected 87.6% of the vote, extending his three decades-long rule by another five years. European leaders are all but certain to repair to their time-honored tradition of demanding Lukashenko’s ouster while imposing fresh sanctions on Belarus.

Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, has extended his 31-year rule in Belarus after being declared the winner of a presidential election that his exiled opponents and Western countries have denounced as a sham.

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, claims to have won a landslide victory in an election already being denounced across the Western world as a “sham”.