Alexander Lukashenko

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lukashenko stated that concerns about the pandemic were a "frenzy and a psychosis" and that working the tractors, drinking vodka and going to saunas could prevent people from infection from the virus. “People are working in tractors. No one is talking about the virus,” Lukashenko said on 16 March 2020. “There, the tractor will heal everyone. The fields heal everyone". He also said: "I don’t drink, but recently I’ve been saying that people should not only wash their hands with vodka, but also poison the virus with it. You should drink the equivalent of 40-50 milliliters of rectified spirit daily", but he advised against doing so while at work. By early May, Belarus was reported to have 15,000 diagnosed cases, one of the highest per capita rates of infection in Eastern Europe.

In August 2018, Lukashenko fired his prime minister Andrei Kobyakov and various other officials due to a corruption scandal. Sergei Rumas was appointed to take his place as prime minister. In May 2017, Lukashenko signed a decree on the Foundation of the Directorate of the 2019 European Games in Minsk. In April 2019, Lukashenko announced that the games were on budget and on time and eventually he opened the 2nd edition of the event on 21 June. Between 1–3 July 2019, he oversaw the country's celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Minsk Offensive, which culminated in an evening military parade of the Armed Forces of Belarus on the last day, which is the country's Independence Day.

In August 2019, Lukashenko met with former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who has lived in exile in Minsk since 2010, in the Palace of Independence to mark Bakiyev's 70th birthday, which he had marked several days earlier. The meeting, which included the presentation of traditional flowers and symbolic gifts, angered the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry which stated that the meeting "fundamentally does not meet the principles of friendship and cooperation between the two countries". On 29 August, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor of the United States, was received by Lukashenko during his visit to Minsk, which was the first of its kind in 18 years. In November 2019, Lukashenko visited the Austrian capital of Vienna on a state visit, which was his first in three years to an EU country. During the visit, he met with President Alexander Van der Bellen, Chancellor Brigitte Bierlein, and National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka. He also paid his respects at the Soviet War Memorial at the Schwarzenbergplatz.

On 11 October 2015, Lukashenko was elected for his fifth term as the President of Belarus. Just over three weeks later, he was inaugurated in the Independence Palace in the presence of attendees such as former President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, Chairman of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov and Belarusian biathlete Darya Domracheva. On mid-September 2017, Lukashenko oversaw the advancement of joint Russian and Belarusian military relations during the military drills that were part of the Zapad 2017 exercise.

In 2015, Lukashenko sought to improve trade relations between Belarus and Latin America.

President Alexander Lukashenko approval rating is at 76.6%, according to the relevant opinion poll conducted by the Information and Analysis Center in August 2015, BelTA. Some 74.1% of Belarusians believe that the decisions that the President makes meet the interests of the common people. Some 77.1% of the respondents agree that Alexander Lukashenko's policies lead the country in the right direction.

Following the 2014 Syrian presidential election, President Lukashenko congratulated President Bashar al-Assad. His cable "expressed keenness to strengthen and develop bilateral relations between Belarus and Syria in all fields for the benefit of the two peoples."

On 4 March 2012, two days after EU leaders (including openly gay German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle) had called for new measures to pressure Lukashenko over alleged human rights abuses in Belarus at a summit in Brussels, Lukashenko provoked diplomatic rebuke from Germany after commenting that it was "better to be a dictator than gay" in response to Westerwelle having referred to him as "Europe's last dictator" during the meeting.

Lukashenko's inauguration ceremony of 22 January 2011 was boycotted by EU ambassadors, and only thirty-two foreign diplomats attended. During this ceremony, Lukashenko defended the legitimacy of his re-election and vowed that Belarus would never have its own version of the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine or Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution.

Effective 31 January 2011, the EU renewed a travel ban, prohibiting Lukashenko and 156 of his associates from traveling to EU member countries, as a result of the crackdown on opposition supporters.

Lukashenko was one of ten candidates registered for the presidential election held in Belarus on 19 December 2010. Though originally envisaged for 2011, an earlier date was approved "to ensure the maximum participation of citizens in the electoral campaign and to set most convenient time for the voters". The run-up to the campaign was marked by a series of Russian media attacks on Lukashenko. The Central Election Committee said that all nine opposition figures were likely to get less than half the vote total that Lukashenko would get. Though opposition figures alleged intimidation and that "dirty tricks" were being played, the election was seen as comparatively open as a result of desire to improve relations with both Europe and the US.

Lukashenko's relationship with Russia, once his powerful ally and vocal supporter, has significantly deteriorated. The run-up to the 2010 Belarusian presidential election was marked by a series of Russian media attacks on Lukashenko. Throughout July state-controlled channel NTV broadcast a multi-part documentary entitled "The Godfather" highlighting the suspicious disappearance of the opposition leaders Yury Zacharanka and Viktar Hanchar, businessman Anatol Krasouski and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski during the late 1990s. Lukashenko called the media attack "dirty propaganda".

In April 2009, he held talks with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican, Lukashenko's first visit to Western Europe after a travel ban on him a decade earlier.

Some Russian nationalists, such as Dmitry Rogozin and the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, stated that they would like to see Lukashenko become President of Russia in 2008. Lukashenko responded that he would not run for the Russian presidency, but that if his health was still good, he might run for reelection in 2011.

In September 2008, parliamentary elections were held. Lukashenko had allowed some opposition candidates to stand, though in the official results, opposition members failed to get a seat out of the available 110. OSCE observers described the vote as "flawed", including "several cases of deliberate falsification of results". Opposition members and supporters demonstrated in protest. According to the Nizhny Novgorod-based CIS election observation mission, the findings of which are often dismissed by the West, the elections in Belarus conformed to international standards. Lukashenko later commented that the opposition in Belarus was financed by foreign countries and was not needed.

In October 2007, Lukashenko was accused of making antisemitic comments; addressing the "miserable state of the city of Babruysk" on a live broadcast on state radio, he stated: "This is a Jewish city, and the Jews are not concerned for the place they live in. They have turned Babruysk into a pigsty. Look at Israel—I was there and saw it myself ... I call on Jews who have money to come back to Babruysk." Members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to the Belarusian ambassador to the US, Mikhail Khvostov, addressing Lukashenko's comments with a strong request to retract them, and the comments also caused a negative reaction from Israel. Consequently, Pavel Yakubovich, editor of Belarus Today, was sent to Israel, and in a meeting with the Israel Foreign Ministry said that Lukashenko's comment was "a mistake that was said jokingly, and does not represent his positions regarding the Jewish people" and that he was "anything but anti-Semitic," and had been "insulted by the mere accusation." The Belarusian Ambassador to Israel, Igor Leshchenya, stated that the president had a "kind attitude toward the Jewish people", and Sergei Rychenko, the press secretary at the Belarusian Embassy in Tel Aviv, said parts of Lukashenko's comments had been mistranslated.

Lukashenko rules an authoritarian regime in Belarus, as elections are not free and fair, opponents of the regime are repressed, and the media is not free. Since 2006, Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials have been the subject of on-and-off sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States for human rights violations.

The OSCE declared on 20 March 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." The heads of all 25 EU countries declared that the election was "fundamentally flawed". In contrast, 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." Lukashenko later stated that he had rigged the election results, but against himself, in order to obtain a majority more typical of European countries. Although he had won 93.5% of the vote, he said, he had directed the government to announce a result of 86%.

After Lukashenko confirmed he was running for re-election in 2005, opposition groups began to seek a single candidate. On 16 October 2005, on the Day of Solidarity with Belarus, the political groups Zubr and Third Way Belarus encouraged all opposition parties to rally behind one candidate to oppose Lukashenko in the 2006 election. Their chosen candidate was Alexander Milinkevich. Lukashenko reacted by saying that anyone going to opposition protests would have their necks wrung "as one might a duck". On 19 March 2006, exit polls showed Lukashenko winning a third term in a landslide, amid opposition reports of vote-rigging and fear of violence. The EcooM organisation gave Lukashenko 84.2% of the vote and Milinkevich just 2%, while the Belarusian Republican Youth Union gave Lukashenko 84.2% and Milinkevich 3.1%. The Gallup Organisation noted that EcooM and the Belarusian Republican Youth Union are government-controlled and both released their exit poll results before noon on election day even though voting stations did not close until 8 pm.

During a televised address to the nation on 7 September 2004, Lukashenko announced plans for a referendum to eliminate presidential term limits. This was held on 17 October 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, the European Union, and the US State Department stated that the vote fell short of international standards. An example of the failure, cited by the OSCE, was the pre-marking of ballots. Belarus grew economically under Lukashenko, but much of this growth was due to Russian crude oil which was imported at below-market prices, refined, and sold to other European countries at a profit.

Some critics of Lukashenko, including the opposition group Zubr, use the term Lukashism 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 ideology based on a cult of his personality and nostalgia for Soviet times among certain groups in Belarus. The US Congress 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. Lukashenko supporters argue that his rule spared Belarus the turmoil that beset many other former Soviet countries. Lukashenko commented on the criticism of him by saying: "I've been hearing these accusations for over 10 years and we have got used to it. We are not going to answer them. I want to come from the premise that the elections in Belarus are held for ourselves. I am sure that it is the Belarusian people who are the masters in our state."

Lukashenko fathered an illegitimate son, Nikolai, who was born in 2004. Though never confirmed by the government, it is widely believed that the child's mother is Irina Abelskaya—the two had an affair when she was Lukashenko's personal doctor. It has been reported by Western observers and media that Nikolai, nicknamed "Kolya", is being groomed as Lukashenko's successor. According to Belarusian state media, these speculations were dismissed by Lukashenko, who also denied that he would remain in office for a further thirty years—the time Nikolai Will become eligible to stand for election and succeed him.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American intelligence agencies reported that aides of Saddam Hussein managed to acquire Belarusian passports while in Syria, but that it was unlikely that Belarus would offer a safe haven for Saddam and his two sons. This action, along with arms deals with Iraq and Iran, prompted Western governments to take a tougher stance against Lukashenko. The US was particularly angered by the arms sales, and American political leaders increasingly began to refer to Belarus as "Europe's last dictatorship". The EU was concerned for the security of its gas supplies from Russia, which are piped through Belarus, and took an active interest in Belarusian affairs. With the accession of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, the EU's border with Belarus has grown to more than 1000 kilometers.

Under the original constitution, Lukashenko should have been up for reelection in 1999. However, the 1996 referendum extended Lukashenko's term for an additional two years. In the 9 September 2001 election, Lukashenko faced Vladimir Goncharik and Sergei Gaidukevich. During the campaign, Lukashenko promised to raise the standards of farming, social benefits and increase industrial output of Belarus. Lukashenko won in the first round with 75.65% of the vote. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the process "failed to meet international standards". Jane's Intelligence Digest surmised that the price of Russian support for Lukashenko ahead of the 2001 presidential election was the surrender of Minsk's control over its section of the Yamal–Europe gas pipeline. After the results were announced declaring Lukashenko the winner, Russia publicly welcomed Lukashenko's re-election; the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, telephoned Lukashenko and offered a message of congratulations and support.

Lukashenko started training in cross-country running as a child, and in the 2000s still competed at the national level.

Upon the outbreak of the Kosovo War in 1999, Lukashenko suggested to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević that Yugoslavia join the Union of Russia and Belarus.

After the referendum, Lukashenko convened a new parliamentary assembly from those members of the parliament who were loyal to him. After between ten and twelve deputies withdrew their signature from the impeachment petition, only about forty deputies of the old parliament were left and the Supreme Soviet was dismissed by Lukashenko. Nevertheless, international organizations and many Western countries do not recognize the current parliament given the way it was formed. At the start of 1998, the Central Bank of Russia suspended trading in the Belarusian ruble, which led to a collapse in the value of the currency. Lukashenko responded by taking control of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus, sacking the entire bank leadership and blaming the West for the free fall of the currency.

Lukashenko blamed foreign governments for conspiring against him and, in April 1998, expelled ambassadors from the Drazdy complex near Minsk and moved them to another building. The Drazdy conflict caused an international outcry and resulted in a travel ban on Lukashenko from the EU and the US. Although the ambassadors eventually returned after the controversy died down, Lukashenko stepped up his rhetorical attacks against the West. He stated that Western governments were trying to undermine Belarus at all levels, even sports, during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.

Lukashenko promotes himself as a "man of the people." Due to his style of rule, he is often informally referred to as бацька (bats'ka, "dad"). He was elected chairman of the Belarusian Olympic Committee in 1997. Lukashenko wanted to rebuild Belarus when he took office; the economy was in freefall, due to declining industry and lack of demand for Belarusian goods. Lukashenko kept many industries under the control of the government. In 2001, he stated his intention to improve the social welfare of his citizens and to make Belarus "powerful and prosperous."

In May 1995, Belarus held a referendum on changing its national symbols; the referendum also made the Russian language equal to Belarusian, and forged closer economic ties to Russia. Lukashenko was also given the ability to disband the Supreme Soviet by decree. In the summer of 1996, deputies of the 199-member Belarusian parliament signed a petition to impeach Lukashenko on charges of violating the Constitution. Shortly after that, a referendum was held on 24 November 1996 in which four questions were offered by Lukashenko and three offered by a group of Parliament members. The questions ranged from social issues (changing the independence day to 3 July (the date of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944), abolition of the death penalty) to the national constitution. As a result of the referendum, the constitution that was amended by Lukashenko was accepted and the one amended by the Supreme Soviet was voided. On 25 November, it was announced that 70.5% of voters, of an 84% turnout, had approved the amended constitution. The US and the EU, however, refused to accept the legitimacy of the referendum.

Since the November 1996 referendum, Lukashenko has effectively held all governing power in the nation. If the House of Representatives rejects his choice for prime minister twice, he has the right to dissolve it. His decrees have greater weight than ordinary legislation. He also has near-absolute control over government spending; parliament can only increase or decrease spending with his permission. However, the legislature is dominated by his supporters in any event, and there is no substantive opposition to presidential decisions. Indeed, from 2004 to 2016, every seat in the lower house was occupied by supporters of the president. He also appoints eight members of the upper house, the Council of the Republic, as well as nearly all judges.

In 1995, Lukashenko was accused of making a remark which has been construed to be in praise of Adolf Hitler: "The history of Germany is a copy of the history of Belarus. Germany was raised from ruins thanks to firm authority and not everything connected with that well-known figure Hitler was bad. German order evolved over the centuries and attained its peak under Hitler."

A new Belarusian constitution enacted in early 1994 paved the way for the first democratic presidential election on 23 June and 10 July. Six candidates stood in the first round, including Lukashenko, who campaigned as an independent on a populist platform. Shushkevich and Kebich also ran, with the latter regarded as the clear favorite. Lukashenko won 45.1% of the vote while Kebich received 17.4%, Zyanon Paznyak received 12.9% and Shushkevich, along with two other candidates, received less than 10% of votes. Lukashenko won the second round of the election on 10 July with 80.1% of the vote. Shortly after his election, he addressed the State Duma of the Russian Federation in Moscow proposing a new Union of Slavic states, which would culminate in the creation of the Union of Russia and Belarus in 1999.

With the gaining to the power of Lukashenko in 1994, the russification policy of Russian Imperial and Soviet era was renewed.

The economy of Belarus has been in a state of flux since Lukashenko's election in 1994. His economic policies aimed to prevent issues that occurred in other Post-Soviet states, such as the establishment of oligarchic structures and mass unemployment. The unemployment rate for the country at the end of 2011 was at 0.6% of the population (of 6.86 million eligible workers), a decrease from 1995, when unemployment was 2.9% with a working-eligible population of 5.24 million. The per-capita Gross national income rose from US$1,423 in 1993 to US$5,830 at the end of 2011. One major economic issue Lukashenko faced throughout his presidency was the value of the Belarusian ruble. For a time it was pegged to major foreign currencies, such as the euro, US dollar and the Russian ruble in order to maintain the stability of the Belarusian ruble. Yet, the currency has experienced several periods of devaluation. A major devaluation took place in 2011 after the government announced that average salaries would increase to US$500. The 2011 devaluation was the largest on record for the past twenty years according to the World Bank.

In 1990, Lukashenko was elected Deputy to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus. He was 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. Having acquired a reputation as an eloquent opponent of corruption, Lukashenko was elected in April 1993 to serve as the interim chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Belarusian parliament. In late 1993 he accused 70 senior government officials, including the Supreme Soviet chairman Stanislav Shushkevich and prime minister Vyacheslav Kebich, of corruption including stealing state funds for personal purposes. While the charges were never fully proven against him, Shushkevich resigned his chairmanship due to the embarrassment of this series of events and losing a vote of no-confidence. He served in that position until July 1994.

Lukashenko went to Alexandria secondary school. He graduated from the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute (now Mogilev State A. Kuleshov University) in 1975, after 4 years studying there and the Belarusian Agricultural Academy in Horki in 1985. He served in the Border Guard (frontier troops) from 1975 to 1977, where he was an instructor of the political department of military unit No. 2187 of the Western Frontier District in Brest and in the Soviet Army from 1980 to 1982. In addition, he led an All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Komsomol) chapter in Mogilev from 1977 to 1978. While in the Soviet Army, Lukashenko was a deputy political officer of the 120th Guards Motor Rifle Division, which was based in Minsk. In 1979, he joined the ranks of the CPSU. 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 Shkloŭ district. In 1987, he was appointed as the director of the Gorodets state farm in Shkloŭ district and in early 1988, was one of the first in Mogilev Region to introduce a leasing contract to a state farm.

Lukashenko married Galina Zhelnerovich, his high school sweetheart, in 1975. Later that year, his oldest son, Viktor, was born. Their second son, Dmitry, was born in 1980. Galina lives separately in the family's house in the village near Shklov. Though they are still legally married, Galina Lukashenko has been estranged from her husband since shortly after he became president. Viktor is a "national security aide"; according to one foreign tabloid newspaper, Lukashenko has dismissed him in public as "a useless weakling who will soon become even weaker".

Belarus condemned the military intervention in Libya, and the foreign ministry stated that "The missile strikes and bombings on the territory of Libya go beyond Resolution 1973 of the UN Security Council and are in breach of its principal goal, ensuring safety of civilian population. The Republic of Belarus calls on the states involved with the military operation to cease, with immediate effect, the military operations which lead to human casualties. The settlement of the conflict is an internal affair of Libya and should be carried out by the Libyan people alone without military intervention from outside." They have not recognized the National Transitional Council.

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (Russian: Александр Григорьевич Лукашенко , romanized: Aleksandr Grigor'yevich Lukashenko, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ɫʊkɐˈʂɛnkə] ) or Aliaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka (Belarusian: Аляксандр Рыгоравіч Лукашэнка , romanized: Aliaksandr Ryhoravič Lukašenka, IPA: [alʲaˈksand(a)r rɨˈɣɔravʲitʂ lukaˈʂɛnka] ; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician serving as President of Belarus since the office was created on 20 July 1994. Before launching his political career, Lukashenko worked as director of a collective farm (kolkhoz), and served in the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army. He was the only deputy to vote against the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union.

Lukashenko was born on 30 August 1954 in the settlement of Kopys in the Vitebsk Oblast of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. His maternal grandfather, Trokhym Ivanovich Lukashenko, had been born in the Sumy Oblast of Ukraine near Shostka (today village of Sobycheve). Lukashenko grew up without a father in his childhood, leading him to be taunted by his schoolmates for having an unmarried mother. Due to this, the origin of his patronymic Grigorevich is unknown. His mother, Ekaterina Trofimovna Lukashenko (1924–2015), worked as a milkmaid.