Belarus claims high turnout in elections The party also said their website was being blocked by the provider Beltelecom. The For Freedom movement also said their website watch.pyx.by, which published turnout figures reported by election observers, was "turned off." Mr Lukashenko, known to his admirers as "Batka" (Dad), cast his vote alongside his extramarital young son Kolya. The president praised the "calmness" of the polls. They should envy our boring elections. We don't need any revolutions or upheavals," said the president, who has ruled for 18 years and been dubbed "Europe's last dictator." Nearly two years after unleashing a crackdown on demonstrators who dared question the scale of his election to a fourth term in December 2010, Mr Lukashenko hardly faces any challenge from his scattered and weakened foes. Several opposition groups called for a boycott of the polls, including United Civil Party and The Belarus People's Front, although others are still supporting certain candidates. But the authorities still appeared to be taking no chances. About a dozen protesters have been arrested in the past week and thousands of fliers calling for a boycott were confiscated. At a press conference Sunday, opposition leaders proclaimed the election unfair, saying the authorities did not let the opposition into voting committees, used force against the opposition and had censored candidates. "This gives us the right not to recognise the results of the vote now, regardless of the outcome," a statement signed by five anti-Lukashenko groups said. The outgoing parliament, stacked with Lukashenko loyalists, spent the term rubber-stamping legislation almost exclusively issued by the president's office, drafting and passing only four largely inconsequential bills of its own. This political stagnation and the erosion of the country's economy in 2011 has prompted Mr Lukashenko's popularity to slip to less than 30 per cent this summer from the 53 per cent he enjoyed going into his last election in December 2010. Facing economic sanctions and a travel ban from the West over rights abuses, the regime has moved even closer to its historic ally Russia, resisting calls for economic and electoral reforms.