MINSK, March 20 (RIA Novosti) - Newly re-elected Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said Monday that presidential elections in the country had come under unprecedented pressure from outside the country.
"The presidential elections are over but they were held in conditions of unprecedented foreign pressure and aggressive behavior by the opposition," said Lukashenko, who was elected for a third term Sunday with 82.6% of the vote.
He said the pressure helped his campaign, adding that Belarusian people had not given in to pressure from outside.
"The majority voted for the incumbent president but, what is more important, they backed the line for the building of a strong and prosperous state," Lukashenko said.
He called on for peace between the country's political groups, urging them not to use the elections as a "factor of discord."
Lukashenko said Belarus should not be criticized for organizing early voting, which is used in most countries, including the "super-democratic" United States and Britain, where people can vote by mail.
"If postal voting was organized in Belarus, we would have been wiped off the map," said Lukashenko, whom Washington has dubbed "Europe's last dictator."
He said Belarus was not afraid of international isolation, but said he hoped the isolation would not continue.
"We have lived in isolation for a long time," he said.
Lukashenko also said he had voted for parliamentarian and Belarusian Liberal-Democratic Party leader Sergei Gaidukevich.
"I am not in the habit of voting for myself," he said, adding that he had voted for Gaidukevich because he is a member of parliament.
Lukashenko said he could not bring himself to vote for opposition candidates Alexander Milinkevich and Alexander Kozulin, and said one of them was a "traitor".
