Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Presidential elections have ended in Belarus. The voting booths closed at exactly 20.00. According to the Central Election Commission, the turnout as of 18:00 was 79%.

Almost six thousand polling stations operated across the country. Another 44 are abroad. More than 50 thousand national observers and 248 international observers, including the CIS mission, followed the voting.

According to a poll of voters, at the exit from the polling stations, Lukashenko gained the most votes with 79.7% of the vote, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya 6.8%, Anna Kanopatskaya 2.3%, Andrei Dmitriev 1.1%, Sergei Cherecheni 0.9%. 9.2% of voters voted against all.

The elections were declared valid, as the majority of voters voted. In total, there are about seven million citizens in the country who can take part in the electoral campaign.

As stated in the CEC, the first results of the vote will be announced closer to two in the morning.

Five candidates, including the current head of state, are running for the post of President of Belarus.