One third of Minskers say presidential election rigged

2001-09-15 14:10:00

Minsk, 15 September. Thirty-three percent of the 500 Minskers polled by BelaPAN from September 10 to 12 considered last week's presidential election rigged by the Aleksandr Lukashenko government, down from 47 percent in a similar preelection poll. Forty-one percent of those interviewed after the election believed the incumbent Lukashenko to have really received the majority of votes. In the mid-August poll, only 22 percent did not expect Belarus' election to be rigged. One percent of September's respondents believed the election to have been rigged by the anti-Lukashenko opposition, down from four percent in August. The rest (25 percent in September and 27 percent in August) checked "Difficult to say."