Belarus parliamentary elections: mixed reviews

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe said there were "minor improvements" during Sunday's elections.

OSCE monitors said in a statement that the vote was "generally well conducted, but the process deteriorated considerably during the vote count".

They said they were denied full access to more than one-third of polling stations for the count and found "several cases of deliberate falsification of results" at other locations.

The OSCE deployed some 450 monitors in the former Soviet republic.

"There was no election in Belarus. It was an electoral farce for the West," Anatoly Lebedko, leader of the opposition United Civil Party, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Elections commission chief Lidia Yermoshina said the conduct of the vote was "in accordance with the law".

President Lukashenko - who has been in power since 1994, in what critics have called Europe's last dictatorship - has said he expects the polls to lead to better relations between Belarus and the West.

In a bid to appease his critics, the president ordered some opponents to be freed from prison and allowed about 70 opposition candidates to stand.

Mr Lukashenko has been trying to re-build ties with the West after a cooling in his relations with Russia, his long-time ally.

European and US diplomats had suggested that sanctions against Belarussian companies could be lifted if the election was conducted well.

All 110 seats of the House of Representatives in Belarus are currently occupied by politicians who back Mr Lukashenko.