MINSK, February 25. /TASS/. Nearly 5,500 polling stations opened in Belarus at 8:00 a.m. (5:00 a.m. GMT) on the first unified election day in the country’s history.

A total of 263 candidates are seeking to enter the 110-seat House of Representatives (lower house of parliament), and 18,802 hopefuls are competing for 12,514 seats on local councils. Polling stations will close at 8:00 p.m. There will be no overseas voting.

The unified election day is taking place under the country’s updated constitution passed in February 2022. Now, members of parliament and local councils will be elected simultaneously for five years.

More than 45,000 domestic observers are monitoring the vote, as well as almost 300 international ones, representing CIS nations (except for Moldova and Ukraine), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the election authorities of a number of countries, including Russia.