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President Aleksandr Lukashenko | |
| Became President: | July 20, 1994 |
| Predecessor: | Myechyslau Hryb |
| Date of Birth: | 1954 |
| Place of Birth: | Vitebsk Oblast |
Aleksandr Lukashenko (Belarusian: Аляксандр Рыгоравіч Лукашэнка, Alyaksandr Rygoravitch Lukashenka, Russian: Александр Григорьевич Лукашенко, Aleksandr Grigoryevitch Lukashenko) was a surprising, youthful newcomer to the Belorussian political scene in 1994, emphatically winning the runoff presidential election on July 10 against Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich, a man who had controlled the politics of the country through strong backing in parliament. He was reelected in September 2001.
| Table of contents |
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2 Populist landslide 3 Battles with the West 4 Reelection 5 Personal |
Lukashenko was born in a village in the Vitebsk oblast of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Repubic (now Belarus) in 1954. He graduated from the Mahilyow Teaching Institute and the Belorussian Agricultural Academy. After serving a total of five years in the army, he held a series of minor posts in the Komsomol (Young Communist League). From 1982 through 1990 Lukashenko held leading management and Communist Party posts at state and collective farms and a construction materials combine.
He was elected to the Supreme Soviet (parliament) in 1990. In the parliament he created a faction called Communists for Democracy. He was the only deputy to oppose the December 1991 agreement that effectively dissolved the Soviet Union. He maintained a close association with leftist Communist factions.
Lukashenko came to power by winning a presidential landslide election victory in 1994. Something of a novice in the affairs of state, Lukashenko was a populist outsider known to the population only because of his role as chairman of the parliamentary commission on corruption. A former state-owned farm manager seen as a man of the people, he unexpectedly beat a pillar of the former communist establishment. During the campaign, he propagated a single message: a return to a clean government; removal of corrupt officials from office and bringing to trial those who had abused their position; and moving the country closer to its Russian neighbor in orientation.
Throughout the former communist states of Eastern Europe, ex- or pro-communists such as Lukashenko were returning to power in a wave of backlash against reform. Impoverished and marginalized, ordinary citizens, especially elderly pensioners and fixed-income laborers, had grown increasingly disillusioned with economic reforms, contributing to growing nostalgia for the Soviet Union and its strong social safety nets and the electoral strength of pro-Communists such as Lukashenko.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belorussians and Russians saw their Soviet-era savings liquidated overnight due to the lifting of price controls. Before Lukashenko's election, most fixed-income wage earners—the vast majority of the workforce—did not enjoy the promises of capitalism's well-stocked shelves, but in fact could afford to buy little, if anything. Workers in state-owned industries (SOEs), once propped up by high Soviet-era subsides, were often out of work or subject to wage arrears.
Lukashenko received 45% of the vote in the frenzied and bitter first-round election campaign with six candidates on June 23. The favored candidate, the prime minister, received only 17 percent. In the run-off election Lukahsneko received an overwhelming, decisive victory. His anticorruption, pro-Russian message enabled him to capture 80.1% of the vote in the second round.
Lukashenko, a youthful politician just shy of age 40, won substantial popular support due to his proclaimed opposition to privatization and market reformers. As president, one of his first acts was doubling the minimum wage. He also ended the draconian price rises that had been occurring. However, he kept some pro-market politicians in high office. Lukashenko might thus be best characterized as a gradualist reformer with a clear preference for a strong executive presidency. He was also committed to economic and monetary union with Russia and possibly political union, resonating with voters nostalgic for Soviet times. Many Belorussians have family in Russia or other ties and find the greater regulations on travel to neighboring Russia or Ukraine an inconvenience.
Lukashenko has long pledged to spare Belorussians from the burden of Russian-style shock therapy and stabilization. Stabilization is a harsh austerity regime that seeks to counteract the inflation opened up by the structural reforms by drastic cuts in government expenditures, increasing taxes, extremely high interest rates (going from 20, 30, 40, to 50 percent), cutting subsidies, and opening the market to foreign trade so that foreign products can compete with domestic ones. In Russia the number of the early-losers of the reform process far exceed the early-winners.
As president, Lukashenko takes pride in contrasting Belarus' stability to Russian instability. Over the past decade in Russia, the depression induced by structural adjustment and stabilization of the regime has been far more severe than the Great Depression in the United States and about half as severe as the catastrophic depression that led to the Bolshevik Revolution. In Russia, roughly half the population is now impoverished in a country where few in the past lacked essentials.
Lukashenko's election was an example of self-interested voters and citizens organizing into parties, trade unions, and non-government organizations to slow the process of establishing a market-economy. Lukahsenko's election is perhaps the most notable political victory in the former Soviet Union for those vulnerable to the wrenching, draconian effects of the radical move from socialism to capitalism.
Belarus, however, is labelled as 'Europe's last dictatorship' by much of the West. Lukashenko's resistance to IMF, World Bank, and US-backed reform has met great resistance among the rich countries. The United States has embarked on a strategy of trying to topple President Lukashenko through the ballot box. Its appointment of Michael Kozak, a veteran of Washington's campaigns to install sympathetic leaders in Nicaragua, Panama and Haiti and undermine the Fidel Castro government in Cuba as head of the US mission in Havana for four years, to lead the US Embassy in Minsk was considered to be a sign of Western hostility.
Western governments cite Lukashenko's beliefs an authoritarian style of government, which he believes is the only alternative to instability, especially evident in the soaring rates of crime in an impoverished Russia and powerful networks of organized crime known as the "Russian mafia."
Lukashenko, however, claims that he has only targeted non-government organizations that have been front organizations for Western ambassadors engaged in spying and plotting to overthrow his government. Lukashenko claims that his only crime has been to be show too much interest in aligning his country with Russia, not the ever-expanding NATO and lack of interest in putting state-owned assets on the block to be snapped up by Western investors looking to make a quick profit.
Lukashenko's charges are not baseless. For instance, the United States maintains relatively friendly ties to the far more autocratic regimes in Central Asia. The United States also has a history of targeting and vilifying radical governments elected through the ballot box, such as Chile's elected socialist president Salvador Allende, who was ousted by a CIA-engineered coup in 1973.
Despite efforts by the Belorussian opposition to discredit his government, Lukashenko appears to have sufficient public support. He remains popular at home, partly for his efforts to hold together the social safety net and stem the economic turmoil that accompanied the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Lukahsenko, then 47, campaigned for reelection in September 2001 on promises to boost living standards, farming and industry over the next five years. He has also pushed for a full merger with Russia, instead of the loose union that exists now. He still tells many ordinary Belorussians what they want to hear: the country will have no truck with Russian-style shock therapy; order will be maintained, and Belarus will continue to grow closer to Russia. Pensions and salaries may be meagre, but for now they continue to be paid on time. Today, Belarus touts on of the lowest Gini coefficients in the world, indicating one of the world's most egalitarian distributions of wealth, while Russia's distribution of wealth is among the most disproportionate in Europe. Belarus' rates of unemployment and poverty also remain far lower than Russian levels. Masses of compromising material and the international community's negative attitude toward Lukashenko have failed to dampen his chances significantly. Even though the opposition has finally consolidated around a single candidate, Lukashenko won handily in the first round.
Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said they recorded no violations on voting day Sunday—but said the election "failed to meet international standards."
However, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenko by telephone after his victory, the Kremlin press service said, and the two leaders pledged further cooperation in their countries' union.
Lukashenko is a sports fanatic, especially of soccer and hockey. Not yet 50 and known for his promotion of physical fitness, he does not smoke or drink, and is very active, unlike most middle-age Russian and Belorussian males. He has even served as chairman of the Belorussian Olympic Committee, despite the International Olympic Committee rules theoretically precluding high state officials from holding such a post. On one occasion, he even declined to meet a delegation from the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe on the grounds that he had an important soccer match to attend. Even his critics cannot disparage the good example that he is setting. After all, inactivity, alcoholism, and tobacco addiction are major factors contributing to declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union.
Background
Populist landslide
Battles with the West
Lukashenko sees himself as a man of the people. He still emphasises his close links with workers in the countryside and in industry. He likes to be filmed driving a combine harvester or chatting with miners.Reelection
Personal
Lukashenko paying his respects to World War II veterans, one of his most loyal bases of support
