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Voting at presidential elections in Belarus over

According to the country’s Central Election Commission, the voter turnout was 79.01% as of 18:00 local time. The highest turnout of 86.01% was reported from the Mogilev region

MINSK, August 9. /TASS/. Voting at Sunday’s presidential elections in Belarus is over as polling stations closed at 20:00 local time. Vote counting has begun.

According to the country’s Central Election Commission, the voter turnout was 79.01% as of 18:00 local time. The highest turnout of 86.01% was reported from the Mogilev region, the lowest turnout of 62.3% was reported from Minsk.

Voting took place at 5,767 polling station, including 44 abroad. As many as 6.8 million Belarusian nationals are eligible to vote.

The elections were declared valid after the voter turnout exceeded 50% A total of 41.7% of voters took part in early voting held during five days. The president is elected when winning more than half of votes.

On Sunday, Belarus held its sixth presidential election since declaring independence in 1991. The incumbent head of state, Alexander Lukashenko, 65, is seeking his sixth term in office. Other candidates are co-leader of the Govori Pravdu (Tell the Truth) public movement Andrei Dmitriyev, former member of the lower parliament house Anna Kanopatskaya, housewife Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, and leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Gramada Sergei Cherchen.

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