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 autocrat Alexander Lukashenko won 87.6% of the vote according to an official exit poll. The exiled opposition called for the result not to be recognized.

STORY: Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule with a massive election win.The country held a presidential election on Sunday.According to results published on the Central Election Commission's Telegram account,

Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet state for 31 years, held a four-hour press conference musing that some of his opponents "chose prison", after winning 88 per cent of the vote.

As an East African bloc urged an immediate ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwandan-backed M23 rebels who seized the city of Goma extended their advance on Wednesday, and Congo said it planned a campaign to recover lost territory.

Britain and Canada have imposed sanctions targeting the regime of Belarus' dictator president, Alexander Lukashenko, following his disputed election over the weekend to a seventh term.

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

Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is all but certain to extend his more than three decades in power in Sunday’s election that is rejected by the opposition as a farce after years of sweeping repressions.

On Monday, the British Foreign Office sanctioned a number of individuals and entities in Belarus in response to the presidential election. Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected for a seventh five-year term with a dictatorial score of over 87% of the vote,