The European Union agreed Monday to suspend sanctions against the regime of Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko after he won a fifth term as president, even though observers said the poll was flawed.

Once dubbed "Europe's last dictator" by Washington, Lukashenko, 61, won a fifth consecutive term on Sunday, picking up 83.5 percent of the vote, according to official figures.

At a meeting in Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers agreed to suspend sanctions against his regime for four months after the elections passed off without incident, France's European affairs minister said.

"We have taken the decision to suspend the sanctions for the next four months but they can be reinstated immediately if that is required," minister Harlem Desir told reporters, adding that the situation would be reviewed after that.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier added: "As far as we could observe from Berlin, there has not been as much repression around the elections as previously."

Ahead of the vote EU diplomats had said Brussels was ready to reconsider the sanctions, which are set to expire on October 31, provided the polls passed off in an "acceptable climate."
But observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said earlier Monday the ballot's integrity had been undermined by "significant problems", especially during the counting of the votes.

"It is clear that Belarus still has a long way to go towards fulfilling its democratic commitments," said Kent Harstedt, head of the OSCE mission.

"We hope we can close some dark chapters and move forward but there remains a lot of work," he told reporters.
- Calm streets -
The streets in the capital Minsk were calm Monday evening after Lukashenko warned the opposition against staging protests over his re-election.

A shrewd operator who has played Brussels against Moscow, Lukashenko has raised his standing with the EU by seeking to distance his ex-Soviet nation from Russia.

Current EU sanctions imposed for rights abuses include travel bans and asset freezes against Lukashenko and around 170 other individuals and 14 groups.  
Some of the other sanctions against his regime date back to 2004.

Belarus' former Soviet master Russia, which props up Lukashenko's regime financially, has been warily eyeing the president's attempts at rapprochement with the West.

Days before the start of Russia's bombing campaign in Syria in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his interest in setting up an air base in Belarus.

In a phone call on Monday, Putin, whose ties with the West have been further complicated by the airstrikes, congratulated Lukashenko on a "convincing victory" and expressed readiness to ramp up ties.

The two are expected to discuss the air base at a meeting in Kazakhstan this week.

While pilloried by rights defenders, Belarus's mustachioed leader of 21 years enjoys a degree of popular support for his folksy, outspoken style and his regime's durability.

He is believed to be grooming his 11-year-old son Kolya as his successor.

In an attempt to assuage Western criticism, he released six jailed opposition leaders ahead of the election. He also won some praise for hosting Ukraine peace talks earlier this year.
- 'Democracy is just words' -
Leaders of the embattled opposition had urged Brussels against lifting the punitive measures against his regime and warned they would not recognise the results of the poll, pointing to what they said was widespread fraud.

"We do not consider the spectacle performed by the Belarussian authorities to be an election and do not recognise it," said opposition leader Vladimir Neklyaev.

Mikola Statkevich, who was among those released from jail ahead of the vote, added: "If they are together with this murderer, this criminal, then democracy is just words."

Independent Belarussian observers also slammed the polls, saying a record 36 percent of the voters had cast their ballots during early voting.

"Belarus lacks basic conditions to conduct fair elections," said opposition politician Sergei Kalyakin.

The newly-crowned winner of the 2015 Nobel Literature Prize, Svetlana Alexievich, last week warned Europe to beware of Lukashenko, describing his regime as a "soft dictatorship."

In power since 1994, Lukashenko unleashed a crackdown on the opposition after thousands took to the streets to protest his disputed re-election in December 2010.

Five years later, the veteran leader ran against three virtual unknowns, with opposition leaders barred from standing in Sunday's polls.

His nearest rival, Tatiana Korotkevich, mustered just 4.42 percent of the ballot.
- 'You know what happens'-
The result is the highest ever for Lukashenko whose government worked hard to ensure an official turnout of over 87 percent.

"Lukashenko won but mass protests and arrests of the opposition did not take place this time," Alexander Klaskovsky, an analyst with Belapan think tank, told AFP.

"It would be enough, in these conditions, for minimal progress in order for the normalisation of ties with the United States and EU to continue."

While Lukashenko allowed an unauthorised opposition rally in the capital to go ahead without police intervention on Saturday, he warned he would not tolerate such protests after the vote.

"You know what will happen," he said.

Source: AFP