Exit poll shows Lukashenko with 87.6% of vote in Belarus presidential race

Belarusian political candidate President Alexander Lukashenko casts his ballot at a polling station in Minsk [Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters]

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko is on track to extend his more than three decades in power with 87.6 percent of the vote in a presidential election, according to an exit poll broadcast on state TV.

Sunday’s vote was the country’s first presidential election since Lukashenko crushed mass protests against his government in 2020 and permitted Russia to use Belarusian territory for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.