On Tuesday, citizens of Belarus began voting in advance for the August 9 presidential elections, in which President Alexander Lukashenko hopes to be reelected to continue to his sixth consecutive term.
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The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) reports that 9.5million citizens have been called to vote and 5,767 polling stations have been installed.
Until August 8, citizens will be able to cast their votes in the presence of at least two members of the electoral commission of the respective school.
Lukashenko chose the day of early voting for his annual message to the nation and Parliament.
The opposition has denounced that the five days of early voting open the door to electoral fraud.
Lukashenko, who is in power since 1994, is competing with four other candidates for president, one of whom is the opposition standard-bearer Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who has become his main rival.
The other candidates are former MP Anna Kanopatskaya, the Gromada Social Democratic Party leader Sergei Cherechen, and the "Tell the Truth" platform co-chair Andrei Dmitriyev.