Alexander Lukashenko

Who is Alexander Lukashenko?

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko is the President of Belarus, having assumed the post on 20 July 1994. Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm and spent time with the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army. When he first entered politics, he was seen as a champion against corruption and was the only deputy to vote against the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union.

Lukashenko opposed Western-backed "shock therapy" during the post-Soviet transition. Belarus is labelled as "Europe's last dictatorship" by much of the West. Western governments have long criticized Lukashenko's authoritarian style of government. Lukashenko responds that his policies are the only alternative to instability, and have spared Belarus from the poverty seen elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and from powerful networks of organized crime known as the "Russian mafia."

Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials are also the subject of sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United States for alleged human rights violations off and on since 2006.