Alexander Lukashenko, Europe’s longest-serving leader, has extended his 31-year rule in Belarus after being declared the winner of a presidential election that his exiled opponents and Western countries have denounced as a sham.

Belarus held an orchestrated election over the weekend that the opposition and the EU rejected as a farce, extending President Lukashenko's more than 30 years in power.

No credible opponents were allowed to run against Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since the 1990s.