Alexander Lukashenko

Alexander Lukashenko Алякса́ндар Лукашэ́нка
President of Belarus
Incumbent
Assumed office  July 20, 1994
Preceded by	Myechyslaw Ivanovich Hryb (as chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus)
Born	August 30, 1954 Kopys, Belarus

Aleksandr Grigoryevich Lukashenko or Alyaksandar Ryhoravich Lukashenka (Belarusian: Алякса́ндар Рыго́равіч Лукашэ́нка, Russian: Алекса́ндр Григо́рьевич Лукаше́нко) (born August 30, 1954 at Kopys, Vitebsk voblast) has been the President of Belarus since 1994.

Early career (to 1994)

Lukashenko was born in 1954 in the village of Kopys in the Vitebsk voblast of what was then the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Repubic. He graduated from the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute in 1975, leading a Komsomol chapter in Mogilev from 1977-1978. In 1975-1977 and in 1980-1982 Lukashenko served in the frontier troops (Border Guards of KGB) and in the Soviet Army. After leaving the armed forces, he became the deputy chairman of a collective farm in 1982 and in 1985, after graduating from the Belarussian Agricultural Academy, 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, his first step as a politician. He founded a faction called Communists for Democracy, 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 favour 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. Stanislav Shushkevich, the speaker of the parliament, was accused by Lukashenko of failing to tackle government corruption. Lukashenko's accusations causes 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, held in July that year. 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 favourite. In the event, Lukashenko won 45% of the vote against 15% for Kebich and only 10% for Shushkevich. A second round was held on July 10 in which Lukashenko won over 80% of the vote.

First term (1994–2001)

Lukashenko's victory came as a surprise to many in Belarus and abroad, given his youth and lack of experience. His manifesto during the campaign included establishing a clean government; removing corrupt officials from office and bringing to trial those who had abused their positions; maintaining pay and working conditions in what was still an almost entirely state-run economy; and moving towards greater integration between Belarus and Russia. There were wide-spread rumours in Belarus that he was supported by Russian secret services.

Although he won substantial popular support due to his proclaimed opposition to privatization and market reformers, much of his electoral platform was focused on the corruption of the Belarusian government. He claimed during the campaign that he was facing a constant threat of assassination and that he had even been shot at.

Lukashenko's platform was strongly at odds with the pro-reform policies backed by the leaders of Belarus' neighbours, which had undertaken radical reform following the fall of Communism. Very little privatization, however, had taken place in Belarus. Only 2% of the economy had been privatized by the time of Lukashenko's election. The end of the Soviet command economy, on which Belarus was very heavily dependent, led to a 50% drop in production between 1991 and 1994 and a corresponding fall in living standards. At the time of the 1994 election Belarus faced an economic crisis: the question was what to do about it.

Lukashenko acted quickly to stabilize the economy: one of his first acts was doubling the minimum wage through increased supply of currency. He also reintroduced state control of prices and reversed the few economic reforms that had taken place. But he faced great problems in trying to revive a command economy in a country of 10.4 million surrounded by emerging capitalist economies.

During his first two years in power, Lukashenko faced an increasingly vocal domestic opposition. In 1995 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suspended lending money to Belarus, citing the government's lack of economic reform. The slow pace of market reforms in Belarus drew strong criticism from the opposition, to which Lukashenko reacted angrily.

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.[3] Lukashenko invited top Russian officials as "mediators" such as former Russian premier Viktor Chernomyrdin and managed to escape immediate impeachment with their support. Shortly after that a referendum was held on November 24, 1996, where 4 questions offered by Lukashenko and 3 questions offered by group of Parliament members were raised.

On November 25, it was announced that 70.5% of voters, on an 84% turnout, had approved the new version of constitution which give more power to the President. However, the United States and the European Union refused to accept the legitimacy of the referendum. [4] [5]

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, ordering the exchange rate to be set back to earlier levels, freezing bank accounts and curtailing the activities of commercial banks. This led to a run on Belarusian banks and a spate of panic buying.

He blamed foreign governments for conspiring against him, and in April 1998 he expelled ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and Japan from their residential complex near Minsk, offering them another building. This caused an international outcry, as diplomatic residences are supposed to be strictly off limits under the terms of the Vienna Convention. The affronted countries all withdrew their ambassadors, as did, temporarily, Russia.

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, including the economy (ejecting an International Monetary Fund delegation and labelling them "swindlers") and even sporting (claiming that Western countries were conspiring to defraud Belarus of medals in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan).

Lukashenko began to take a more active stance of supporting countries struggling against U.S. hegemony. The outbreak of the Kosovo War in 1999 led to Lukashenko proposing a "Slavic Union" of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Yugoslavia, an idea which received only lukewarm support and was quietly dropped. Following the Iraq war of 2003, the United States announced that several high-ranking Iraqi officials had been issued Belarusian passports.

These policies led Western governments to take a tougher position against Lukashenko. The United States was particularly angered by Belarus's arms trade with the so-called "Axis of Evil" countries and American political leaders increasingly began to refer to Belarus as "Europe's last dictatorship", comparing Lukashenko with Yugoslavia ousted leader Slobodan Milošević. 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 when the accession of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania gave the EU a lengthy border with Belarus.

Second term (2001–2006)

Lukashenko meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin at an August 2005 CIS meeting.

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 Ghancharyk.

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 organisations 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 criticised 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.^[3]

Lukashenko promotes himself as a "man of the people". Because of his style of rule, he is often informally referred to as bat'ka, which is literally translated as "dad", but the word has the meaning of "chieftain" in the history of the Slavic peoples. He was elected chairman of the Belarusian Olympic Committee, despite the IOC rules precluding high state officials from holding such a post.

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.

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.

Economic policy

Main article: Economy of Belarus

The Belarusian economy remains about 80% state-controlled, as it has been since Soviet times. The country is relatively stable economically, but depends to a large extent on raw material supplies from its close ally Russia. Industry and agriculture remain largely in state hands. Belarus is therefore one of the very few state-capitalistic national economies remaining. Agriculture is dominated by collective farming, with the major sub-sectors the cultivation of potatoes and cattle breeding. Historically important branches of industry include textiles and wood processing. After 1965, creation of heavy industry and mechanical engineering (tractors, refrigerators) significantly strengthened the country's development. Within the Soviet Union Belarus was one of the industrially most developed republics. Economically, Belarus engages itself in the Commonwealth of Independent States, Eurasian Economic Community and Union with Russia. After 1990, with the introduction of free market structures into the former Soviet Union, industrial production plunged. However, economic growth returned in 1996 and in 2001 Belarus was first of CIS coutries to reach 1990 levels of industrial production and agricultural production.Gross domestic product (GDP) for 2005 was $79.13 billion (estimate), which equates to an annual income of approximately $7,700 dollar per head. In 2005 GDP increased by about 8-9%, with the inflation rate averaging about 8%. Belarus therefore has the highest standard of living of all the CIS states. According to the UN, average monthly income grew from 20 United States dollars to 225 USD during the last 10 years.

The unemployment rate, according to Belarusian government statistics, was about 2% in 2005. However, foreign experts have suggested that the real rate is probably higher. More controversial is the decision to abandon the Belarusian ruble (BYR) in favour of the Russian ruble (RUB), starting on January 1 2008, according to Russian news agency ITAR-TASS.^[4]

International opposition

Lukashenko continues to face domestic opposition from a coalition of opposition groups bankrolled by the United States and Europe, although these have tended to be weak, divided, hampered by the government's restrictions and underfunded. The United States Congress has sought to aid the opposition groups by introducing a Belarus Democracy Act in 2001, 2002, 2003, and finally passing it in 2004 to introduce sanctions against Lukashenko's government and provide financial and other support to the opposition. This is modelled on the overt and covert support given to the opposition in Serbia, which successfully toppled President Slobodan Milošević in 2000. Lukashenko has been characteristically defiant, declaring that "there will be no Koštunica here" (a reference to Vojislav Koštunica, the Serb politician who replaced Milošević).

2006 presidential election

Main article: Belarusian presidential election, 2006

In October 2005 Lukashenko confirmed his intent to seek a third term in office. In 2006 the liberal and nationalist opposition rallied around Alexander Milinkevich.

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. [6]

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 nighly protests and demonstrations in Minsk. The turnout at the biggest protest on election night was about 10,000 according to AP reporters' estimates [7]

Opposition leaders called for another demonstration to be carried out on March 25. Several thousand people gathered in the center of Minsk, where Milinkevich and Kozulin made a speech about political situation in the country.

Election observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) differed on the Belarus vote (see [8]).

The OSCE declared on March 20, 2006 that the "presidential election failed to meet OSCE commitments for democratic elections." The OSCE stated that 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," and concluded that "a pattern of intimidation and the suppression of independent voices . . . was evident throughout the campaign." [9] The CIS observers, in constrast, 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 . . . ."

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. 57 [2]
3. ^ M J A Standish. "Editor's notes." Jane's Intelligence Digest. 11 January 2006.
4. ^ Russia-Belarus Union to have common currency starting from 2008. Retrieved on 2006-03-26.

External links

• President's official site
• BBC - Profile: Alexander Lukashenko
• Statement at the 60th Session of the UN General Assembly

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