Thousands of people poured onto a snow-blown central square Sunday night to protest the results of a presidential election in which incumbent Alexander Lukashenko was heading to the kind of overwhelming victory that his opponents charge lacks any credibility.

With nearly all of the ballots counted, Lukashenko, 51, had won 82.6 percent of the vote, far ahead of three other candidates, the country’s Central Election Commission reported early today.

Alexander Milinkevich, the favorite of the country’s youthful opposition, had won 6 percent, followed by another opposition candidate, Alexander Kozulin, a former university rector. The fourth candidate was Syarhey Haydukevich, an ally of Lukashenko who was on the ballot to create a sheen of competition.

Milinkevich called on his supporters to return to the square this evening to continue to contest the results. “We demand new, honest elections,” he told the crowd. “This was a complete farce.”

But in a country where Lukashenko controls nearly all of the news media, which portray members of the opposition as criminal revolutionaries, it will be difficult to disseminate Milinkevich’s desire to challenge the vote. The rally was all but ignored by state media Sunday night.

Absent in Belarus are many of the elements that recently helped enable popular protests to topple governments in Ukraine and Georgia after fraudulent elections. There is no independent broadcast media, the opposition is not well-financed and Milinkevich, a former physics professor, was virtually unknown three months ago.

Moreover, Lukashenko, seeking a third term after 12 years in power, remains popular with a large segment of Belarusan society that appreciates the political and economic stability of the former Soviet republic.

Many in the crowd on October Square recognize the limits of what they can achieve, but said the fact that thousands were still willing to protest in a climate of fear gave them hope. Before the vote, Lukashenko and the country’s security service, which is still known as the KGB, had promised to crush any protests.

“We are dreaming about a free and independent country,” said Snezhana Lisovskaya, a 22-year-old student. “We’re here and we have the feeling that something will change – if not tonight, then soon.”