Belarussian riot police broke up early Friday a five-day-old opposition rally protesting the re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko at a downtown square in Minsk.

Riot police arrived at the city's October Square in the early hours of Friday and took away about 200 demonstrators in police trucks. Police wrestled resisting protesters into trucks, Russian news agencies reported.

The operation lasted about 15 minutes. Tents the protesters used during their rally remained on the square.

Opposition supporters began to rally on the square on Sunday night, claiming the presidential vote, in which Lukashenko won re-election, was rigged and demanding a rerun. But the number of protesters camping on the square had been dwindling.

On Thursday, Lukashenko was officially declared the winner of Sunday's presidential election, securing a third term in office.

Lukashenko received 83 percent of the vote in the election while his main rival Alexander Milinkevich got 6.1 percent, Central Election Commission spokesman Nikolai Lozovik said.

Election observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States declared the Belarus vote open and transparent. But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the vote "failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections."

Source: Xinhua