Lukashenko, Alexander, << `loo` kah SHEHN koh, `ah` lehk ZAHN dur >> (1954-…), became president of Belarus in 1994. He concentrated power in his own hands and set up repressive policies similar to those of the former Soviet Union. He also worked to forge closer ties with Russia.
Lukashenko was born near Shklow, Belarus, then part of the Soviet Union. He graduated from Mahilyov Teachers Training Institute in 1975 and the Belarusian Agricultural Academy in 1985. Lukashenko served in the Soviet border troops from 1975 to 1977 and 1980 to 1982. In 1987, he became director of a state-owned farm in Shklow district. In 1990, Lukashenko was elected to the Supreme Council, Belarus’s former legislative body.
Belarus gained independence after the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991. Belarus held its first presidential elections in 1994. Lukashenko won 80 percent of the votes, defeating five other presidential candidates. He won Belarusian support by promising to fight government corruption and to improve the country’s economy.
Lukashenko faced many problems in his new presidency. An explosion and fire at the nuclear power plant in Chernobyl (now Chornobyl), Ukraine, in 1986 had devastated the Belarusian economy. Wind carried much of the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl to Belarus, causing many health problems. Belarus also struggled to make its new political and economic systems work.
While other former Soviet republics sought to loosen their ties to Russia, Lukashenko tried to strengthen the links between Belarus and Russia. He made Russian an official language of Belarus and continued to honor Soviet holidays. In the late 1990’s, Lukashenko and Russia’s president, Boris N. Yeltsin, signed several agreements strengthening ties between the two countries.
In 1996, Lukashenko pushed through a referendum (direct vote of the people) for a new Constitution that extended his term to 2001 and gave him increased control over every branch of government. He also created a new legislative body designed to favor his supporters. The opposition claimed that the referendum was fraudulent. Some members of the old legislative body refused to recognize the new legislature.
Through the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, opposition groups continued to protest against Lukashenko and the new Constitution. The government responded with heavy-handed and sometimes violent repression. Many Belarusians remained loyal to Lukashenko, however, regardless of political repression and their country’s poverty. Outside of Belarus, many observers called Lukashenko “Europe’s last dictator.”
In 2004, Belarus held a referendum on changing the Constitution to allow Lukashenko to run for president again in 2006. Lukashenko claimed to have won the right by a large margin, but observers questioned whether the vote was free and fair. Lukashenko was reelected in 2006, 2010, and 2015. Foreign governments and independent observers criticized these elections as undemocratic. In 2020, Lukashenko again suppressed his political opposition prior to the election, and his claim of victory in August led to protests. Security forces arrested and beat many protesters, and video recordings of the beatings shocked many Belarusians. Mass strikes and even larger pro-democracy demonstrations followed.
See also Belarus (Recent developments).
