"Sham" Election in Belarus
October 19, 2004; New York Times, Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/19/opinion/19tue3.html?oref=regi

According to a New York Times editorial, Belarus continues its steep decline toward all-out despotism in its latest “election”. The Times editorial charged afterward that Belarus President, Aleksandr Lukashenko orchestrated what they called“a sham election” that would him to stay on as President for a third five-year term. This, despite election observers and a Gallup poll noting that, among other discrepancies, turnout had been less than fifty percent –which according to the rules should have invalidated the measure to change the election rules and allow him to stay on. In the same elections, the Times noted, not a single member of the opposition was elected to the lower house of Parliament. The editorial charged that the fraudulent vote, overwhelmingly, “confirms Mr. Lukashenko as a post-Soviet autocrat.”