Alyaksandr Grigorevich Lukashenka

Alyaksandr Grigorevich Lukashenka, born in 1954, also known by the Russian spelling of his name, Aleksandr Lukashenko, who has served as president of Belarus since 1994. His presidency has been marred by repeated allegations of election fraud.

Born in Kopys’, in northeastern Belarus, Lukashenka graduated from Mahilyow Teaching Institute and the Belarusian Agricultural Academy and became an instructor of political affairs. After five years in the army Lukashenka rose through the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Mahilyow Oblast. He held managerial posts in the Communist Party at collective and state farms and at a construction materials combine in the oblast.

Lukashenka was elected to the Supreme Soviet, the legislature of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), from Belarus in 1990. In 1994 he ran for the newly created post of president of Belarus on an anticorruption campaign. However, he kept many officials from the old regime, and his own administration has been accused of corruption. Lukashenka has advocated closer relations, even complete unification, with Russia. He has instituted many policies to promote the Russian language and Russian-centered cultural activities. In April 1996 and again a year later, Lukashenka and Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed agreements for closer economic and political ties between their two countries. In December 1998 Yeltsin and Lukashenka signed an accord for the two countries to merge their currencies, customs regulations, and tax collection systems the following year.

Since taking office, Lukashenka has centralized administrative authority in the capital and in the hands of the executive. Seeking to expand his powers, he called a referendum in November 1996 that contained provisions to extend his five-year term to seven years and make the legislature subordinate to the executive. The referendum passed amid widespread allegations of vote fraud; Lukashenka immediately signed its provisions into law as amendments to the constitution, despite an earlier ruling by the Constitutional Court that the results were to be used only for advisory purposes. Lukashenka also dissolved the opposition-led Supreme Soviet and created a new legislature composed of his supporters.

Legislative elections in October 2000, which were boycotted by the opposition, reinstated a legislature mostly loyal to Lukashenka. Lukashenka was reelected president in 2001. Independent observers of both elections concluded neither was free or fair by international standards. Similar claims were made in legislative elections held in 2004, which were dominated by Lukashenka allies, and presidential elections in March 2006, in which Lukashenka was credited with more than 86 percent of the vote. The 2006 elections spawned massive public demonstrations, leading to at least 1,000 arrests. Lukashenka and government officials continued to insist that the elections were not fraudulent.