World agrees: Belarusian elections farce

There’s hardly a government in the world which hasn’t condemned the recent Belarusian elections as farce—Lukashenko won 83 percent of the vote and said he had "convincingly demonstrated who the Belarusians are and who is the master of our house."

 Mr. Lukashenko called opposition supporters "children" and said they were paid by foreign governments. "They were 14- and 15-year-old children who were paid 20,000 Belarusian rubles," Lukashenko said. "So they worked for their 20,000 rubles." (20,000 Belarusian rubles is 7.64 euros.)

The Estonian government said it was “shocked by the use of force against the presidential candidates of the opposition, the detention of election activists and local independent observers, also by the restrictions on the activities of free media and pre-election public gatherings.” The Lithuanians initially said they did not believe the results were “transparent,” and Andrius Kubilius, the opposition leader in the Seimas and chairman of Lithuania’s Homeland Union, called Lukashenko’s 83 percent an “absolute anachronism on the continent of Europe.”

We at City Paper want to get in our two cents, and therefore we officially call the election “a bunch of hooey,” terms we believe no one else has employed.