Lukashenko to run for president in 2025, Belarus votes

Lukashenko made his comments after voting in Sunday's parliamentary and local council elections, denounced by the United States as a sham. The ex-Soviet state's top election official dismissed the criticism and told Washington to look after its own affairs.

BelTA said Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, told journalists: "Tell them (the exiled opposition) that I'll run. No one, no responsible president would abandon his people who followed him into battle."

Lukashenko, 69, is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest allies and allowed the Kremlin to use his country's territory to launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"We're still a year away from the presidential election. A lot of things can change," he said in response to a follow-up question, BelTA reported.

"Naturally, I and all of us, society, will react to the changes that will take place in our society and the situation in which we will approach the elections in a year's time," Lukashenko said.

Meanwhile, Sunday's tightly controlled parliamentary and local elections in Belarus are set to cement the hardline rule of the country's authoritarian leader.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for nearly three decades and accuses the West of trying to use the vote to undermine his government and "destabilise" the nation of 9.5 million people.

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who is in exile in neighbouring Lithuania after challenging Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election, urged voters to boycott the elections.

"There are no people on the ballot who would offer real changes because the regime only has allowed puppets convenient for it to take part," Tsikhanouskaya said in a video statement.

"We are calling to boycott this senseless farce, to ignore this election without choice."

The US State Department condemned what it called the "sham" elections Belarus.

"The elections were held in a climate of fear under which no electoral processes could be called democratic," department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.

The chairman of Belarus' Central Election Commission, in comments quoted by BelTA, said it was not up to the United States to comment on the election.

"We don't denounce their elections. We make no statements, even if they had over there a lot of questions for all to see, even in their last presidential election," Igor Karpenko was quoted as saying.

"They work according to the principle that we are bigger and can therefore tell everyone what to do. I think we can manage quite nicely conducting elections in our own country."

Election commission officials said voter turnout stood at just below 73 per cent by mid-evening. Turnout in the Belarusian capital Minsk was notably lower than in other Belarusian regions, only reaching 61.54 per cent.

Lukashenko's re-election to a sixth term in 2020 sparked unprecedented protests by opponents alleging mass vote-rigging.

with AP

Australian Associated Press