Belarusians voted on Sunday in an election set to hand President Alexander Lukashenko a seventh term, prolonging his three-decade authoritarian rule.
Lukashenko — a 70-year-old former collective farm boss — has been in power in reclusive, Moscow-allied Belarus since 1994.
Speaking after casting his vote in the capital Minsk, the self-avowed "dictator" dismissed critics of his rule and said he could release political prisoners as long as they asked him for a pardon.
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