Entirely pro-government parliament elected in Belarus

Election officials in Belarus on Monday said all but one of the 110 races for parliament had been decided, with the opposition failing to win any seats, DPA reported.

International observers criticized the lack of competition and free speech in the elections, and the US State Department said it "fell short of international standards." In Minsk 20 election monitors were temporarily detained, local media reported.

Election chairwoman Lidia Yermoshina told reporters she had not heard of any opposition candidates being elected.

The election commission presented high voter turnout figures in Sunday's election, which was boycotted by the country's main opposition parties to protest the detention of political activists.

The commission placed voter turnout at 74.2 per cent. A vote in one district will have to be repeated because no candidate achieved an absolute majority.

Anastasia Machenko, the leader of the independent Belarussian monitoring group Election Observation Theory and Practice, said police took her fingerprints and those of her colleagues and released them after three hours without giving any reason.

"This election was not competitive from the start," said Matteo Mecacci of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. "A free election depends on people being free to speak, organize and run for office, and we didn't see that in this campaign."

European Parliament President Martin Schulz said the vote "failed to meet international standards of fair and transparent polls."

Schulz called the election "a mockery of a democratic ballot," noting that opposition leaders remained imprisoned, some opposition candidates were denied registration and the people's voice was silenced.

In Washington State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States urged the authorities to take steps to meet Belarus' international commitments to hold genuinely democratic elections and to foster respect for human rights.

"Enhanced respect for democracy and human rights in Belarus, including the release and rehabilitation of all political prisoners, remains central to improving bilateral relations with the United States," Nuland said.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, has dismissed fraud claims by the opposition. Western observers have criticized as undemocratic all recent elections in Belarus.