“The turnout reached 47.56 percent by 10:00 hours (local time),” CEC Chairman Igor Karpenko announced.
He added that the turnout stood at over 51 percentage points in the Brest and Gomel regions.
Karpenko noted that all 5,325 polling stations nationwide opened at 08:00 hours (local time) and will continue to operate until 22:00 hours (local time).
Previous CEC reports also state that early voting was held from January 21 to 25, and the turnout rate reached 41.81 percent.
Vote from abroad has been banned in these elections due to security reasons.
More than 6.9 million voters are casting their vote to elect the president of Belarus for the next five years.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is running to secure a seventh consecutive term since 1994.
Oleg Gaidukevich, head of the Liberal Democratic Party; Alexander Khizhnyak, chairman of the Republican Party of Labor and Justice; Sergei Syrankov, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party; and Hanna Kanapatskaya, former 2020 presidential candidate and non-party businesswoman, are the other four candidates who, along with Lukashenko, are racing for the country’s presidency.
jg/iff/mem/odf