By Mark Trevelyan (Reuters) -Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was on track to extend his 31-year rule with a massive win in a presidential election on Sunday that Western governments rejected as a sham.

And according to a nighttime statement by the Central Election Commission, the strongman leader won by a landslide, garnering nearly 87% percent of the vote.

Belarus autocrat Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, won a seventh consecutive term in office Sunday in an election denounced by the European Union and the exiled opposition. With his opponents in prison or exiled, the 70-year-old ruler appeared to have won 87.6 percent of the vote, according to an official exit poll.