Main opposition candidate goes into hiding on eve of crucial presidential vote in Belarus - CNN

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya's campaign said she fled her apartment due to safety reasons after police detained several of its senior staffers, in what critics called an attempt to intimidate the opposition ahead of the crucial vote.

On the eve of the vote, Tikhanovskaya's campaign manager Maria Kolesnikova was briefly detained and taken to a police station for questioning.

He has long drawn international criticism for suppressing dissent, and the country's secret police -- still known as the KGB -- often detain and harass opposition activists and independent journalists.

Independent observers in Belarus such as the "Honest people" volunteer monitoring group said they have found significant discrepancies between the officially announced turnout and the number of people entering the polling stations they were able to count.

Most independent observers have been barred from monitoring this election.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said in July it will not be sending observers to Belarus due to no invitation from the country's authorities and expressed "deep concern at reports that prospective candidates had been intimidated and opposition activists arrested."

In the run-up to the election, law enforcement seemingly stepped up its crackdown efforts as riot police made multiple arrests to break up impromptu demonstrations against Lukashenko.