The incumbent Aleksandr Lukashenko was officially named the winner of Belarus' 2001 presidential election.

The country's central election commission announced on September 14 the final official results of the September 4-9 voting. According to the commission, 4,666,680 people, or 75.65 percent of those who took part in the voting, voted for Mr. Lukashenko; 965,261 people, or 15.65 percent, for trade union leader Vladimir Goncharik, the candidate supported by a broad opposition coalition; and 153,199 people, or 2.48 percent, for Sergei Gaidukevich, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus.

Data about the number of the votes against all the three candidates, and about the number of the ballots found invalid were not disclosed.

The central election commission said that 83.86 percent of the registered voters had cast their ballots in the election.

The commission rejected the demand by Goncharik, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC), and the Vyasna human rights group to invalidate the results of the presidential election. The human rights groups and Lukashenko's main challenger argued that the election results could not be valid because of large-scale fraud and numerous violations of the electoral law.

Belarus' presidential election "failed to meet the OSCE commitments for democratic elections formulated in the 1990 Copenhagen Document and the Council of Europe standards," the International Limited Election Observation Mission (ILEOM) said on September 10, the day after the election.

The ILEOM unites the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the Parliamentary Troika composed of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament.

In its "Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions," the ILEOM welcomed "the emergence of a pluralist civil society, being the foundation for the development of democratic political structures, representing all segments of the population," and noted that "the isolation of the country is not in the best interest of the Belarus people and is not conducive to strengthening democratic development."

The ILEOM confirmed the importance of the four criteria ("transparency of the election process, access of opponents to the state-run mass media, non-discrimination of political opponents, and meaningful functions and powers for the parliamentary body") established in 2000 by the Parliamentary Troika "as the benchmarks for democratic elections and the main conditions for the ongoing democratization process in Belarus."

The ILEOM noted some "fundamental flaws" in the electoral process:

- "A political regime that is not accustomed to and does everything in its power to block the opposition;"

- "Executive structures with extensive powers, including rule by presidential decree, that are not balanced with commensurate legislative controls, and that allow the arbitrary changing of the electoral environment;"

- "A legislative framework that still fails to ensure the independence of election administration bodies, the integrity of the voting results tabulation process, free and fair campaign conditions, and imposes excessive restrictions for campaigning and observers;" and some others.

The ILEOM also pointed to "some positive features:" "An emerging civil society mobilized and deployed many thousands of domestic observers, including those favorable to the government; it was however profoundly regrettable that a few thousand of these observers had their accreditation revoked; The democratic forces of the opposition were able to overcome their differences and jointly contest the election, being an expression of greater and maturing political and democratic awareness."

Representatives of the European Union and the United States concurred with the mission's conclusion about the election's failure to meet democratic standards.