Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, has extended his 31-year rule in Belarus after being declared the winner of a presidential election that his exiled opponents and Western countries have denounced as a sham.

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, claims to have won a landslide victory in an election already being denounced across the Western world as a “sham”.

As an East African bloc urged an immediate ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwandan-backed M23 rebels who seized the city of Goma extended their advance on Wednesday, and Congo said it planned a campaign to recover lost territory.

Opposition leader-in-exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya labeled Lukashenko’s successful reelection as “sheer nonsense.” Before Sunday’s vote, she had encouraged voters to cross out every candidate’s name on the ballot.

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Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election Western governments rejected as a sham.