'Alexander Lukashenko' (, ''Aljaksandar Ryhoravič Lukašenka/Alyaksandar Ryhoravich Lukashenka''; , ''Aleksandr Grigoryevich Lukashenko''; born
August 30,
1954) has served as the
President of Belarus since July 1994.
[Belarus CIA Factbook] Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko served as a military office and worked as a director for manufacturing plants and farms. As President, Lukashenko has sought economic integration with
Russia and focused on corruption issues. His policies have been criticized by foreign and domestic observers as undemocratic.
Early career (to 1994)
Lukashenko was born in 1954 in the settlement of
Kopys in the
Vitebsk voblast of the
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. He graduated from the
Mogilev Pedagogical Institute in 1975, leading a
Komsomol chapter in Mogilev from 1977 to 1978. Lukashenko served in the
Border Guard from 1975 to 1977 and in the
Soviet Army from 1980 to 1982. After leaving the military he became the deputy chairman of a
collective farm in 1982 and in 1985. He was promoted to the post of director of the
Gorodets state farm and construction materials plant in the
Shklov district.
In 1990 Lukashenko was elected as a Deputy in the
Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus. He founded the 'Communists for Democracy' faction, which advocated a democratic Soviet Union run on communist principles. He claims to have been the only deputy of the Belarusian parliament who voted against ratification of the December 1991 agreement that dissolved the
Soviet Union and set up the
Commonwealth of Independent States in its place. In the aftermath of the dissolution of the
USSR, Lukashenko briefly returned to management of a state farm.
Having acquired a reputation as an eloquent opponent of corruption, Lukashenko was elected in 1993 to serve as the chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Belarusian parliament. Although he maintained a close association with leftist Communist factions, he fell out of favor with much of the
Party of Communists of Belarus for his attacks on the corruption and privileges of the Communist
nomenklatura.
In late 1993 he accused 70 senior government officials of corruption including stealing state funds for personal purposes. Lukashenko accused
Stanislav Shushkevich, the Speaker of Parliament, of failing to tackle government corruption. His accusations led to a vote of confidence, which Shushkevich lost. Some believe that the vague nature of the charges indicates they were merely a pretext for removing Shushkevich, who had become increasingly unpopular among the conservative parliamentary majority.
[1][2]
A new
Belarusian constitution enacted in early 1994 paved the way for the first democratic presidential elections in July. Six candidates stood, including Lukashenko, who campaigned as an independent on a populist platform of "defeat[ing] the mafia." Shushkevich and
Vyacheslav Kebich also ran, with the latter regarded as the clear favorite. Lukashenko won 45% of the vote while Kebich received 15% and Shushkevich received 10%. Lukashenko won the second round of the election on
July 10 with over 80% of the vote.
[3]
First term (1994-2001)
In May of 1995, one of the first votes under Lukashenko occurred. Not only the national symbolics of the country changed, it also gave the Lukashenko the ability to disband the Supreme Soviet by decree.
[4] In the summer of 1996, 70 deputies of the 199-member Belarusian parliament signed a petition to impeach Lukashenko on charges of violating the Constitution.
[5] Shortly after that a referendum was held on
November 24,
1996 in which 4 questions were offered by Lukashenko and 3 questions offered by a group of Parliament members. The vote passed, but faced international and internal condemnation.
[6]
On
November 25, it was announced that 70.5% of voters, on an 84% turnout, had approved the new version of the Constitution which gave more power to the President. However, the
United States and the
European Union refused to accept the legitimacy of the referendum.
[7]
After the referendum Lukashenko convened a new parliamentary assembly from those members of the parliament who were loyal to him. After 12 deputies withdrew their signature from the impeachment petition, only about 40 deputies of old parliament were left behind by Lukashenko, but they even had no place to convene, since the administration closed the parliament building "for remodeling". Still, for some time the
EU and
Council of Europe considered these remnants of the old parliament as the legitimate assembly.
[8]
At the start of 1998, the Russian central bank suspended trading in the Belarusian ruble, which led to a collapse in the value of the currency. Lukashenko responded by taking control of the Belarus central bank, the sacking of the entire bank leadership and blaming the West for the free fall of the currency.
[9]
He blamed foreign governments for conspiring against him, and in April 1998 he expelled ambassadors from the Drazdy complex near
Minsk, offering them another building. The
Drazdy conflict caused an international outcry, and resulted in a travel ban on Lukashenko from the
European Union and the
United States.
[10] Although the ambassadors eventually returned after the controversy died down, Lukashenko stepped up his rhetorical attacks against the West and took to portraying his domestic opponents as stooges of hostile foreign powers. He claimed that Western governments were trying to undermine Belarus at all levels, even sporting, during the 1998
Winter Olympics in
Nagano,
Japan.
[11]
Upon the outbreak of the
Kosovo War in 1999, Lukashenko suggested to Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic that Yugoslavia join the
Union of Russia and Belarus.
[12] Following the
Iraq war of 2003, the United States intelligence agencies issued a report that announced aides of
Saddam Hussein managed to acquire Belarusian passports while in Syria. The same report mentioned it was unlikely that Belarus would offer safe harbor for Saddam and his two sons.
[13]
These policies led Western governments to take a tougher position against Lukashenko. The United States was particularly angered by Belarus's arms trade with
Iran and
Iraq and American political leaders increasingly began to refer to Belarus as "Europe's last
dictatorship".
[14] The European Union was concerned for the security of its gas supplies from Russia, which are piped through Belarus, and took an active interest in the country's affairs. As of 2004, the EU and Belarus share a border over 1000 kilometers in length with the accession of
Poland,
Latvia and
Lithuania.
[15]
Second term (2001-2006)
Lukashenko's original five-year term of office ran out in July 1999 but had been extended to 2001 by the 1996 referendum. Elections were held on
September 9,
2001, in which Lukashenko campaigned on a platform broadly similar to that of 1994: retention of the
planned economy; a full merger with Russia but no Russian-style
shock therapy; strong presidential rule to maintain social order; opposition to the enlargement of
NATO and the West in general. His opponent was
Uladzimir Hancharyk.
Lukashenko won in the first round in what was claimed to be a landslide victory. However, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe described the process as "failing to meet international standards" and human rights organizations reported that opposition supporters were systematically harassed, arbitrarily barred from standing as candidates or voting and were excluded from the state-run media. Western governments also criticized the elections. Russia, by contrast, publicly welcomed Lukashenko's re-election. ''
Jane's Intelligence'' surmised that the price of Russian support for Lukashenko ahead of the presidential elections was the surrender of Minsk's control over its section of the
Yamal-Europe gas pipeline.
[16]
Lukashenko promotes himself as a "man of the people". Because of his style of rule, he is often informally referred to as ''bat'ka'' ("
father").
He was elected chairman of the
Belarusian Olympic Committee in 1997.
[17] During a televised address to the nation on
September 7,
2004 Lukashenko announced plans for a referendum on whether to eliminate presidential term limits. This was held on
October 17,
2004, the same day as parliamentary elections, and according to official results was approved by 79.42% of voters. Previously, Lukashenko had been limited to two terms and thus would have been constitutionally required to step down after the presidential elections in 2006.
[18]
Opposition groups, the OSCE, EU, and US State Dept have accused state TV channels of pro-Lukashenko bias and transmitting pro-Lukashenko propaganda and election day polls at midday on October 17, although Belarusian law prohibits this. The opposition and western observers said that the vote was fraudulent. The
OSCE mission said it "fell significantly short of international standards".
CIS monitors on the other hand stated that vote was held without significant violations.
2006 presidential election
Main articles: Belarusian presidential election, 2006
After Lukashenko confirmed he was running for re-election in 2005, opposition groups began to seek a single candidate. On October 16, 2005, the Day of Solidarity With Belarus, Zubr and Third Way Belarus, were encouraging all of the opposition parties to rally behind one candidate to oppose Lukashenko in the 2006 election.
[19] Their chosen candidate was
Alexander Milinkevich, who was running against Lukashenko and other candidates.
[20]
On
March 19,
2006 exit polls showed Lukashenko winning a third term in a landslide, amid opposition claims of vote-rigging and fear of violence. The
EcooM organization gave Lukashenko 84.2% of the vote and Milinkevich just 2 percent, while the
Belarusian Committee of Youth Organizations, gave Lukashenko 84.2% and Milinkevich 3.1 percent. The Gallup Organization has noted that EcooM and the Belarusian Committee of Youth Organizations are government-controlled and both released their exit poll results before noon on election day, although voting stations closed at 8 P.M.
[21]
Belarus authorities vowed to crush unrest in the event of large-scale protests following the election (such as those that marked the
Orange Revolution in Ukraine). Despite that, the crowd of demonstrators rallying after the election was the biggest the opposition had mustered in years, with nightly protests and demonstrations in Minsk. The turnout at the biggest protest on election night was about 10,000 according to
AP reporters' estimates.
[22]
Election observers from the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) differed on the Belarus vote.
[23] The OSCE declared on March 20, 2006 that the "presidential election failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections." Lukashenko "permitted State authority to be used in a manner which did not allow citizens to freely and fairly express their will at the ballot box... a pattern of intimidation and the suppression of independent voices... was evident throughout the campaign."
[24] In contrast, the CIS observers declared the Belarus presidential election open and transparent. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs declared, "Long before the elections, the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights had declared that they [the elections] would be illegitimate and it was pretty biased in its commentaries on their progress and results, thus playing an instigating role."
Some
Russian nationalists, such as
Dmitry Rogozin and the
Movement Against Illegal Immigration, have stated that they would like to see Lukashenko become
President of Russia in 2008. Lukashenko spoke and said he will not run for the Russian presidency and, if his health is still well, he might run for reelection in 2011.
[25]
Criticism
Some critics of Lukashenko use the term 'Lukashism' ('lukashenkoism') to refer to the
political and
economic system Lukashenko has implemented in
Belarus. The term is also used more broadly to refer to an
authoritarian political ideology based on
cult of his personality and
nostalgia for
Soviet times among certain groups in Belarus. It is not known where the term was first used, though the earliest documented use was in
1998. The use was in the context of opening of a museum to memorialize victims of Communism with a wing dedicated to Lukashism.
[26] The term has been used mostly by groups who oppose Lukashenko, such as
Zubr.
[27]
Lukashenko continues to face domestic opposition from a coalition of opposition groups bankrolled by the United States and Europe. The
United States Congress has sought to aid the opposition groups by passing the
Belarus Democracy Act of 2004 to introduce sanctions against Lukashenko's government and provide financial and other support to the opposition.
[28]
References
1. Prof. David R Maples. "Belarus, the black sheep of Eastern Europe?". The Ukrainian Weekly, No. 41, October 13 1996. [1]
2. Sven Gunnar Simonsen. "Conflicts in the OSCE area", International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, 2004, p. 179 [2]
3. Country Studies Belarus - Prelude to Independence. Library of Congress. Retrieved March 21, 2007.
4. Central Elections Committee of the Republic of Belarus 1995 Referendum Questions
5. CNN Concern grows over Belarus power struggle. Published November 19, 1996.
6. CNN Belarus president convenes new parliament. Published November 26, 1996.
7. BBC Observers deplore Belarus vote. Updated October 14, 2004.
8. British Helsinki Human Rights Group, a 1997 report on Belarus
9. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/68004.stm
10. http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/rferl/1998/98-07-22.rferl.html#21
11. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/olympics1998/sport/articles/ruler21.htm
12. http://www.serbia-info.com/news/1999-04/15/10890.html
13. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2003/06/24/886972.htm
14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/116265.stm
15. http://www.mfa.gov.by/eng/index.php?d=publications/smi&id=14
16. M J A Standish. "Editor's notes." ''Jane's Intelligence Digest.'' 11 January 2006.
17. http://www.noc.by/eng/nokrb/htdocs/1/
18. British Broadcasting Corporation Observers deplore Belarus vote. Published October 18, 2004. Retrieved March 28, 2007.
19. http://www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/102005/41.html
20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4304412.stm
21. http://www.charter97.org/eng/news/2006/03/20/gallup
22. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/03/19/international/i170349S45.DTL
23. http://english.people.com.cn/200603/21/eng20060321_252162.html
24. http://www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/18437_en.pdf.html
25. MosNews. Rightist Group Promote Belarus Dictator Lukashenko as Russian Presidential Candidate. Published February 28, 2007. Retrieved July 11, 2007.
26. http://www.open.by/belarus-now/cont/1998/1117/politics/bg5-pol.html
27. http://www.zubr-belarus.com/english/index.php?show=oldpress/oldpress058
28. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041020-14.html
External links
★
President's official site
★
BBC - Profile: Alexander Lukashenko
★
Statement at the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly
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