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

Belarusians are voting in a closely-managed presidential election that is all but certain to extend the one-man rule of Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994 and Europe’s longest-serving leader.

Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham.

MINSK (Reuters) -Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that some of his political opponents had "chosen" to go to prison as he cast his vote in a election that was set to extend his 31-year rule.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union rejected the election in Belarus on Sunday as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions. Belarus held an orchestrated vote virtually guaranteed to give 70-year-old autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko yet another term on top of his three decades in power.

The E.U. has called Sunday’s election a sham. Lukashenko, running virtually unopposed, said he was “too busy” to even campaign.

Belarusian strongman President Alexander Lukashenko is poised to extend his rule into a fourth decade in a tightly-controlled vote where he faces no opposition.