Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko facing criticism amid claims of rigged elections

Belarusis navigating one of the biggest political crises in its post-Soviet historyafter the opposition rejected official election results handing President Alexander Lukashenko a landslide re-election victory.

A former Soviet collective farm manager, Alexander Lukashenko has ruledBelarussince 1994. The 65-year-old has cast himself as a guarantor of stability, saying the state looks after most of its 9.5 million people's needs in the same way as the Soviet Union did.

Washington once called him Europe's last dictator. He has faced regular criticism from the West over human rights abuses, something he denies. By winning his sixth presidential election,he is set to extend his 25-year rule.

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Also see:Water cannons, tear gas, stun grenades: Protesters clash with Belarus police after election results

Mass protests erupted after polls closed. The opposition says the election was rigged and that talks need to begin on a peaceful transfer of power.Western superpowers are backing this popular opinion.

Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanouskaya said on Tuesday she had fled to Lithuania for the sake of her children, after two nights of clashes following the contested re-election of strongmanLukashenko. The state border committee later confirmed her departure.

The announcement came after she was in meeting with government officials for seven hours. After that shewent missing. She had gone to lodge a complaint against the election result.

Tikhanouskaya, a 37-year-old former English teacher, emerged from obscurity to mount the biggest challenge in years to Lukashenko, taking her husband's place in the campaign after he was jailed.

"And I know that many people will understand me, many will judge me and many will hate me. But, you know, God forbid being faced with such a choice the I was faced with," she said.

Hercampaign team said on Tuesday that she had been forced to leave the country by the authorities.Her husband, Syarhei, had popularised a protest movement that compared Lukashenko to a cockroach character from a children's fairytale. He was arrested in May.

People stormed the streets, demanding Lukashenko's resignation, police fired tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to keep them under control.

In defence, protesters set up barricades and threw molotov cocktails. 3000 protesters have been arrested, half of them in the capital city of Minsk.

President Lukashenko says they are sheep acting under the orders of foreign actors.

"There were calls from Poland, Great Britain, and the Czech Republic. They controlled our, excuse me, sheep. Protesters do not understand what they are doing. They are already coming under someone's control."

Lukashenko wants no foreign interference, but he is facing the heat.

USSecretary of State Mike Pompeo said the election was "not free and fair" and condemned "ongoing violence against protesters and the detention of opposition supporters".

Foreign observers have not judged an election to be free and fair inBelarussince 1995, and the run-up to this month's vote saw authorities jail Lukashenko's rivals and open criminal investigations of others who voiced opposition.