than quarter of a century. alexander lukashenko is running for the sixth time — he's been in powerfor 26 years. several of his rivals were put in prison orfled into exile earlier this summer. but a political novice — svetla na tikhanovskaya — stepped into the race in their place and has drawn big crowds to rallies across the country, calling for change. a key figure of her campaign, veronika tsepkalo, has reportedly fled the country for safety reasons. i've been speaking with professor elena korosteleva, director of the global europe centre at the university of kent, who is originally from belarus and has this afternoon cast her vote in the election. i started by asking how much of a threat was ms tikhanovskaya to president lukashenko‘s hopes of a sixth term in office. the challenge is massive simply because the levels of mobilisation are absolutely astounding. i am standing just outside

the embassy in london. it's just incredible looking at the crowd of people, how they are cheering everyone coming out of the embassy, looking at the way they voted. an exit poll registering every single vote that comes out here. what is amazing is that the queue is about 2000 people long, it has passed so many streets and the crowd and the peaceful mood of voters and those demonstrating, it's just incredibly peaceful but also wanting change. president lukashenko won with 80% back in 2010. there was civil unrest there, demonstrations, do you think he will win this time and if he does, will the elections be considered free and fair internationally? the prediction is that the president is very likely to win this vote,

given the way the central election committee and the whole thing is organised around it. however, given the level of civic mobilisation across the country and beyond the country, we have volunteers here who are actually taking record of everyone who came in to vote. it will be very interesting to see the difference between the real vote and the vote that is going to be reported by the central election committee. max verstappen has become the first non mercedes driver to win a formula one race this season. the dutchman started from fourth on the grid for the 70th anniversary grand prix at silverstone. his red bull team used a different tyre strategy to get ahead

of the mercedes of lewis hamilton who finished second and third placed valtteri bottas who'd started from pole. hamilton's championship lead remains thirty points, but verstappen has now leapfrogged bottas into second. now it's time for a look at the weather with helen willets. hello. the hot, humid weather continues in southern and eastern areas. further north, with the sunshine, i think a more pleasant low 20s throughout the rest of today. the cloud has been quite slow to clear east wales and northern england, so where it lingers, particularly in the north sea coast, it will be a little bit cooler here. but really the heat is with us for the next three to four days, both by day and by night. the low cloud returns tonight, and we pick up and increasing chance of a few showers from now on. but i think the talking point tonight is how humid it will be again, and more so for northern ireland and scotland compared with the nightjust gone. and also, the low cloud should clear a little bit more

ready through the day tomorrow. some more sunshine for northern england equates to higher temperatures, but also an increased risk further west of some showers and some thundery downpours as we go through the day. so, here, outside the showers, temperatures are still mid to high 20s, but again peaking towards the low or mid 30s in the south and the east. and the risk of thunderstorms increases. hello, this is bbc news. the headlines: i'm very pleased that the prime minister is making i've been arguing for some time that my fear was that children