MINSK, Belarus -- The majority of races for the Belarus parliament will be decided in a runoff after voters managed to elect just 20 candidates in the first round, results showed Thursday.


Five Communists, 11 independents and an assortment of candidates from other parties won seats in voting Wednesday. Another 121 seats must be filled in a second round of voting Dec. 10.


At least 55 seats must be filled in order for a quorum of 174 to be reached in the 260-member parliament.


President Alexander Lukashenko has threatened to introduce direct rule if all the seats in parliament are not filled.


Wednesday's election was held after voters in May elected just 119 members of parliament, far lower than the required quorum, as a result of low voter turnout which invalidated the majority of races.


Voter turnout Wednesday was 62 percent, countering pre-election speculation that an apathetic Belarussian electorate would fail to produce the 50-percent turnout required to validate the elections. "The elections showed that our people are concerned with the political situation, especially the lack of a proper legislature," said electoral commission head Vladimir Abramovich.


The turnout was high enough to judge elections valid in all 141 constituencies, Interfax quoted Central Electoral Commission Chairman Alexander Abramovich as saying.


Election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the elections were held in strict accordance with Belarussian law, but noted that Belarus' mass media was not given full freedom and deputies' access to the media was limited before the polls. (AP, MT)