Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko won a fifth consecutive term in power on Sunday, extending his 21-year-long regime in a country diplomatically sandwiched between Russia and the West. In the run up to the vote, the strong-arm ruler nominally eased pressure on opposition groups. But opposition figures called for a boycott of this election, with no candidate able to represent a serious challenge to the incumbent. The West has long condemned Belarus' human rights record and leveled economic sanctions against its leading officials. Lukashenko won the West's approval for criticizing Russia's annexation of Crimea, hosting peace talks for the Ukraine crisis and denying Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to build an air base in Belarus.