MINSK, Jan 27, (AP): The smiling face of President Alexander Lukashenko gazed out from campaign posters across Belarus on Sunday as the country held an orchestrated election virtually guaranteed to give the 70-year-old autocrat yet another term on top of his three decades in power. "Needed!” the posters proclaim beneath a photo of Lukashenko, his hands clasped together.

The phrase is what groups of voters responded in campaign videos after supposedly being asked if they wanted him to serve again. And according to a nighttime statement by the Central Election Commission, the strongman leader won by a landslide, garnering nearly 87% percent of the vote. But his opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, would disagree.

They call the election a sham - much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests that were unprecedented in the history of the country of 9 million people. The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West. His iron-fisted rule since 1994 - Lukashenko took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union - earned him the nickname of "Europe’s Last Dictator,” relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia.

He let Moscow use his territory to invade Ukraine in 2022, and even hosts some of Russia's tactical nuclear weapons, but he still campaigned with the slogan "Peace and security,” arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into war. "It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,” Lukashenko said in his characteristic bluntness. His reliance on support from Russian President Vladimir Putin - himself in office for a quarter-century - helped him survive the 2020 protests.

Observers believe Lukashenko feared a repeat of those mass demonstrations amid economic troubles and the fighting in Ukraine, and so scheduled the vote in January, when few would want to fill the streets again, rather than in August. He faces only token opposition. According to official results, announced in the early hours of Monday, Lukashenko won 86.82% of the vote - compared to his nearest rival's 3.21%. According to the Central Election Commission, 3.60% of voters spoilt their ballots. In 2020, the electoral body claimed Lukashenko had taken 80.10% of the vote.