Alyaksandr Voytovich, an opposition candidate for president in Belarus, said on 6 January that it will be very difficult to unseat Lukashenka in the country's March elections.

"Some people may not like it, but I always tell the truth. It's impossible to act otherwise when one is a scientist," Voytovich, the former head of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, said. "That's why I say the possibility that there will be a change in power in three months' time is very low. As I have already said, there will in fact be no real election at all," he added.

Voytovich, who was the leader of the upper house of the Belarusian parliament from 2003-04, said he is in the process of gathering the necessary 100,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. He said, however, that he might withdraw his candidacy to protest Lukashenka's participation in the poll.

"This move would be not in order to support somebody else, but to show that Lukashenka's bid for a third term is not legitimate," Voytovich said.