President Alexander Lukashenko was on track to win a fifth consecutive term by a landslide Sunday, exit polls showed, as the Belarussian leader warned critics against contesting the election outcome and ridiculed one of his opponents for being a woman.
The vote was being closed watched by the European Union, with officials indicating the bloc was ready to lift sanctions against the authoritarian leader, regularly accused of rights abuses, if the aftermath of the polls remains incident-free.
Lukashenko, 61, once called Europe's last dictator by Washington, was all but certain to extend his 21-year grip on the landlocked eastern European country with several exit polls on state television giving him more than 80 percent of the vote.
Two hours before polls closed at 1700 GMT, turnout stood at more than 81 percent, according to the central election commission.
The last elections in 2010 led to mass street protests against Lukashenko's victory, triggering a crackdown during which a number of leading opposition figures were arrested.
With long-standing opposition leaders barred from standing in Sunday's vote and state media giving Lukashenko uniformly positive coverage, the veteran president ran against three virtual unknowns - only one of whom bothered to campaign.