Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham.

The head of the CEC of Belarus, Igor Karpenko, said that 86.82% of voters had voted for self-proclaimed head of state Aleksandr Lukashenko in the “election”. But this is preliminary information, reports Belta.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule with a massive win in a presidential election that Western governments have rejected as a sham, according to preliminary results on Monday.

President Alexander Lukashenko has won a a seventh term in office in Belarus, according to the country’s Central Election Commission. According to a statement by the Central Election Commission, the 70-year-old leader took nearly 87% per cent of the vote in Sunday’s election after a campaign in which four token challengers all praised his rule.

The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from campaign posters across Belarus on Sunday as the country held an orchestrated election virtually guaranteed to give the 70-year-old autocrat yet another term on top of his three decades in power.