PHALANXES of Belarusian police in full riot gear violently dispersed thousands of demonstrators who poured into the streets to challenge an early count from Sunday’s presidential election indicating that long-time authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko had won a sixth term by a landslide.

The crackdown that began late on Sunday and lasted through the night followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against the president, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation for 26 years.

Election officials declared that early returns showed the 65-year-old was winning with more than 80 per cent of the vote. Main challenger Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, had about 9.9 per cent.

Thousands of Ms Tsikhanouskaya’s supporters quickly took to the streets of the capital Minsk to protest against what they said was official manipulation of the vote.

Riot police moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.

After breaking up the big crowds, police chased smaller groups of protesters across central Minsk for several hours.

Mr Lukashenko warned that he would not hesitate to use force again to disperse opposition demonstrations.

“We will not allow them to tear the country apart,” he said. “We wanted to make it a holiday for the people. But some wanted to spoil that holiday.”

Ms Tsikhanouskaya entered the race after her husband, an opposition blogger who had hoped to run for president, was arrested in May.

She managed to unite fractured opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies.

The coronavirus-induced economic damage and Mr Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic, which he airily dismissed as “psychosis,” has fuelled broad anger, helping swell the opposition ranks.

The post-election protest, in which young demonstrators, many of them teenagers, confronted police, marked a previously unseen level of violence.

“We don’t agree with [the election results], we have absolutely opposite information,” Ms Tsikhanouskaya said today.

“We have official protocols from many poll stations where the number of votes in my favour are many more times than for another candidate. We are gathering proof of falsification.”

Supporters of the Belarusian president said the unrest was organised by foreign forces, including the Polish government and “Banderites” (supporters of Ukrainian World War II nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera) from Ukraine.