On January 26, Belarusians will solid their ballots in a presidential vote. Formally, there are 5 applicants, however 70-year-old Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has dominated the rustic for greater than 3 a long time, will virtually without a doubt hold his seat.
Date Vladimir Putin’s Russia tolerated some extent of noticeable dissent, a minimum of till the invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko was once described for a few years as “Europe’s last dictator” – a name which didn’t appear to faze him.
“I am the last and only dictator in Europe. Indeed, there are none anywhere else in the world,” he instructed Reuters in 2012.
Belarus’s opposition, the USA, the Ecu Parliament and rights teams have pushed aside the later vote as a “sham”. The extreme presidential elections in 2020 kicked off cluster protests amid usual allegations of vote rigging, adopted by way of a brutal crackdown by way of the government.
Mavens and insiders say Lukashenko is pushed by way of a “thirst for power” and, having been shaken by way of the ones demonstrations, the worry of shedding keep an eye on.
“This desire for power has been driving him for 30 years. It does not let him relax for a second,” Valery Karbalevich, a political eyewitness at Radio Self rule and writer of an unofficial biography of Lukashenko, instructed Al Jazeera. “Power and life are the same thing … and he does not imagine his life without power.”
Born in 1954 within the the town of Kopys in northern Belarus, Lukashenko, a self-confessed troublemaker in school, was once a Soviet pig farm supervisor sooner than turning into president. The chief, who every now and then has made outlandish claims comparable to vodka and visits to the sauna with the ability to block COVID, is cruel and distrustful, eyewitnesses and those that labored below him say.
“This man is capable of giving an order to kill if someone goes against him,” stated Pavel Latushka, Belarus’s now-exiled former minister of tradition from 2009 to 2012.
“I had a conversation with him where he told me directly: ‘If you betray me, I will strangle you with my own hands.’ He later repeated this publicly in a recent [2024] interview with Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.”
As Belarus heads to the polls on Sunday, who’s the person in the back of the chief and what motivates him nowadays?
Soviet nostalgia
Belarus, a landlocked people of a tiny greater than 9 million bordering Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, was once as soon as a part of the USSR. Like many leaders of former Soviet republics, Lukashenko’s political profession started throughout that length. Not like them, on the other hand, Lukashenko didn’t embody nationalism and was once the one lawmaker in Soviet Belarus to vote towards his nation’s freedom in 1991.
Nostalgia for the Soviet age is mirrored in a lot of Lukashenko’s governance.
“He lived in the Soviet Union for more than 30 years and now, he cannot go beyond that life experience,” stated Karbalevich.
Lukashenko, after 39, gained Belarus’s first, and up to now most effective, presidential election deemed separate and honest by way of out of doors eyewitnesses in 1994. The free candidate ran on a populist platform, pledging to root out corruption and railing towards the “lawlessness” which he stated held the rustic “hostage”. Straight away post-independence, Belarus suffered from a stagnating economic system, corruption, inflation and racketeering gangs.
Date it’s tricky to pinpoint when precisely Lukashenko evolved distrustful inclinations, or whether or not he at all times had them, he survived an assassination aim at the marketing campaign path when his automotive got here below hearth by way of unknown assailants. A situation tv documentary upcoming claimed the attackers had been operating in the name of high-ranking officers.
Lukashenko gained roughly 80 p.c of the vote, defeating the rustic’s first high minister, Vyacheslav Kebich, who inherited the activity nearest freedom and below whom attribute of day had deteriorated.
Inside a yr of assuming place of work, Lukashenko held a referendum that modified Belarus’s white-and-red flag to at least one intently corresponding to the aging Soviet design. He instructed Global Struggle II veterans, “We have returned to you the national flag of the country for which you fought.”
He maintained a deliberate economic system, with situation monopolies over business and saved the collective farms noticeable, successful the commitment of the rural sector. This state-run economic system avoided the emergence of robust oligarchs dominating nationwide politics, not like in Russia and Ukraine, even supposing a handful of businessmen with hyperlinks to the federal government have prospered lately.
“At the beginning of his presidency, he was really popular,” defined Karbalevich.
“He considered himself the people’s president and told different stories about how the public loved him.”
At a gathering of presidency officers in 2006, as an example, Lukashenko boasted how bedridden warfare veterans nearly stood as much as manufacture their solution to balloting cubicles.
‘Afraid to look him in the eye’
Karbalevich believes that again after, Lukashenko had a perceptible and sought after to exit i’m sick in historical past as the person who “created the Belarusian statehood” and an spare fashion to post-communist transition in alternative nations, however he additionally sought after the situation to keep an eye on the economic system.
To an extent, it proved environment friendly: not like Russia, which was once plagued by way of poverty and organised crime within the Nineties, Belarus was once fairly guard and the inequality hole was once slim. The rustic’s Gini coefficient – a wealth inequality measure – has maintained a greater stability than its neighbours or even portions of Western Europe.
All over, Lukashenko has attempted to domesticate an tender, paternalistic symbol as “Bat’ka” – the daddy of the people. He’s steadily photographed collaborating in “subbotnik” – the Soviet follow of endeavor unpaid volunteer paintings at the weekends – as an example, by way of serving to out on a farm. He enjoys recreation and health, and projected a picture of a powerful, wholesome chief by way of enjoying hockey.
“Lukashenko enjoys evening events,” stated Latushka, who labored at once below the president throughout his year as a minister.
“He gathered key officials, journalists, sports and cultural figures for closed parties on New Year’s, on the traditional Old New Year [January 14]. At first, there was an open part, and later a closed one, which could last until 6, even until 7 in the morning, with a concert programme in a Stalinist style when everyone sits at the table and watches the artists. Lukashenko can drink at such events – even a lot, and then he can even go dancing. This is a part of his life hidden from society.”
However every other side of Lukashenko’s management briefly changed into obvious early in his rule.
“Fear. That is why officials sit with their heads down during meetings with him,” Latushka stated.
“Everyone is afraid to look him in the eye. This is a paternalistic system of power. As soon as he leaves, everyone’s heads will rise, everyone will start talking and acting differently. In public, Lukashenko is outwardly a very cruel person, capable of publicly humiliating anyone. He does not take into account other people’s points of view.”
Consolidating energy
Inside two years of entering into place of work, Lukashenko engineered a constitutional referendum giving him keep an eye on over parliament and the safety equipment. The opposition alleged usual balloting fraud, even supposing it’s additionally conceivable part of the citizenry, cautious of the instability in neighbouring Russia, was once certainly prepared to provide Lukashenko the ones powers.
Next in 2004, Lukashenko abolished presidential time period limits thru every other such referendum, that means he may rise for election over and over again.
Uladzimir Zhyhar, a former detective and consultant of Belpol, a bunch of exiled ex-Belarusian cops who defected to the opposition nearest the protests of 2020, accused legislation enforcement of being, in the beginning, henchmen for Lukashenko’s regime.
“This is the system he has cultivated for 30 years,” Zhyhar instructed Al Jazeera.
“After the anti-constitutional referendum of 1996, the police, courts, prosecutor’s office, investigative committee and, of course, special services, obey [Lukashenko]. There is torture, there are illegal arrests, there are interrogations … and the main department for fighting organised crime, which if it concerns politically motivated crimes, they are allowed to do everything. Absolutely everything, regardless of human rights or anything else.”
Between 1999 and 2000, 4 of Lukashenko’s political combatants went lacking (PDF): former Inside Minister Yury Zakharanka; lawmaker Viktar Hanchar and his pal, businessman Anatol Krasowski; and journalist Dzmitry Zavadski. An exiled member of an elite unit concentrated on gangs in 2019 admitted to collaborating in 3 in their abductions and murders.
Lukashenko has appointed loyalists to senior positions, each throughout the safety forces and state-run industries. However it sort of feels that he does now not totally consider them.
“Lukashenko absolutely hates people who can be in some position of authority, and so he is constantly engaged in the rotation of personnel,” Zhyhar defined. And hour former safety workforce might occupy deputy positions at enterprises, they’re by no means – “as a rule” – appointed to supremacy posts.
“He is afraid that this former security operative, having certain knowledge, having a certain authority, will be able to form connections and pose a threat to him.”
Between Moscow and the West
Early in his presidency, Lukashenko’s overseas coverage echoed the aging Soviet Union’s place throughout the Chilly Struggle. He railed towards Western imperialism and travelled to Belgrade amid NATO bombing to backup Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic. He was once additionally deeply invested in reintegration with Russia and in 1997 signed a Union Order word with then-President Boris Yeltsin. Below phrases that have been by no means totally applied, Russia and Belarus would have re-united.
“Lukashenko had a desire to unite with Russia into one state and to conquer it,” Karbalevich defined. “Then, in the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin was unpopular in Russia as a president. He was old and sick, and Lukashenko thought that he could defeat him at any democratic election. But then Putin came to power [in 1999], and Lukashenko lost interest in integration with Russia.”
The preliminary members of the family between Lukashenko and Putin had been “very, very tense”, added Vladzimir Astapenka, who served as a Belarusian diplomat to a number of Latin American nations within the 2010s. “They were like competitors, and Putin did a lot to move Lukashenko back to where he belongs.”
Nonetheless, Lukashenko leveraged his place as one head of the nominal Union Order to procure concessions from Moscow. The Belarusian economic system relied closely on Russian subsidies of inexpensive oil, which was once subtle in Belarus and resold in Ukraine and the EU. Russia, in the meantime, imported immense amounts of Belarusian agricultural form, comparable to milk and cheese.
Members of the family remained cordial however free all over the 2010s, with Lukashenko quietly embracing a extra Belarusian identification, even giving a pronunciation in Belarusian in 2014 in lieu of the normal Russian.
Nonetheless, Yauheni Preiherman of the Minsk Discussion Council on World Members of the family suppose tank, says Lukashenko has been a hit at dealing with his non-public courting with Putin and Minsk’s with Moscow. “I sometimes call him the best Kremlinologist in the world, because whether we like him or not, his unique access to Putin himself and the rest of the Russian political elite makes him a very knowledgeable statesman in that regard,” he defined.
On the similar year, Lukashenko began attaining out to the West, as an example, in 2008 and 2015 ordering the shed of political prisoners, nearest which the Ecu Union (EU) in flip lifted some sanctions it had imposed over Belarus’s inner repression.
On the onset of the warfare in jap Ukraine in 2014, Belarus situated itself as a impartial mediator, with Lukashenko flip-flopping over the query of the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by way of Russia early within the struggle.
The tale you generally to find within the mainstream Western media is “Lukashenko, the last dictator of Europe, being only focused on ensuring his power inside the country. That makes him ideologically close to Putin, and that’s the end of the story,” Preiherman defined.
However what will get overpassed is a extra complicated fact of his relationships with Russia and the West, he argues.
“With Russia, he has had both more conflict and cooperation, whereas with the European Union and the West, he has had less of both. And this is easy to explain,” he stated. “This is because the structure of Belarus is much closer to, and in many respects dependent on, Russia.”
In 2019, the still-unresolved subject of the Union Order manifested itself in a diplomatic situation. Putin sought after to push forward with reintegration, however Lukashenko warned this type of motion by way of Moscow could be interpreted as antagonistic, and the Kremlin fired again by way of chopping its oil subsidies.
The later yr the whole thing modified.
‘Enacting vengeance’ towards protesters
Within the presidential elections of 2020, Lukashenko claimed victory with greater than 80 p.c of the vote, a poll that was once broadly considered by way of the opposition as rigged.
Loads of hundreds of family poured into the streets within the biggest cluster protests ever unhidden in Belarus. They had been met by way of truncheon-wielding insurrection squads. About 35,000 had been arrested, and hundreds had been allegedly overwhelmed or tortured in custody. As much as as many as 15 protesters had been killed throughout or within the aftermath of the unrest, and a minimum of one particular person was once raped in custody.
“For the first time, he lost,” Zhyhar stated.
“He lost informationally. He lost on the street, because thousands of people went out and lined up in a chain of solidarity. He lost, in fact, even at the elections themselves, because everyone saw the queues that were lined up to vote for [opposition candidate Sviatlana] Tsikhanouskaya. Everyone saw it.”
“The authoritarian regime has become totalitarian,” Karbalevich stated. “It’s restrained to criticise Lukashenko. It’s restrained to uncertainty the correctness of the situation order. If an individual is located [doing that] in social networks, she or he is detained for this. Lukashenko’s behaviour has modified. The political machine has transform extra inflexible.
“Lukashenko is traumatised by the events of 2020. Now, he is cruelly enacting vengeance on the Belarusians who protested against him.”
There are lately greater than 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus, a minimum of 10 of whom are held in solitary confinement. They come with Nobel Diversion Prize winner Ales Bialiatski, chairman of the Viasna Human Rights Centre, and Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of Tsikhanouskaya who now leads the exiled opposition from Lithuania.
“Lukashenko is well aware that not all the people against him have left the country, and he didn’t imprison everyone. And therefore, for four and a half years, we have been repressed,” Zhyhar stated.
“We have no independent media, we have no independent trade unions, we have no independent NGOs, we have no independent courts, we have no independent law enforcement agencies. And most importantly, Lukashenko is still afraid of the people. Therefore, he does not reduce repression, he only increases it.”
Hostage of his personal machine
The aftermath of the 2020 protests burned Lukashenko’s bridges with the West, as the USA, United Kingdom and EU imposed sanctions, hour Putin supported him.
“The sanctions, when they were initially adopted, were proclaimed as a means to force Lukashenko and his government to lessen domestic repression, free prisoners, and launch an inclusive internal discussion with his opponents,” stated Preiherman.
However on all the ones counts, the status is far worse, he says. They’ve additionally created unintentional aftereffects. “Lukashenko has had next to zero manoeuvring space in relations with Russia, [and] geopolitically, they have ensured that Russia is the only game in town,” he added.
The protests introduced Lukashenko with a catch 22 situation: percentage energy with the family, or with Putin, displays Karbalevich.
“He agreed to share power with Putin … Now people in the West think that Lukashenko is not an independent statesman, that Putin is the real master of Belarus and Lukashenko is only his puppet. I would not be so radical; Lukashenko is quite autonomous. But today, this union with Belarus and Russia is very close.”
From February 2022, even supposing he didn’t deploy troops within the struggle, Lukashenko allowed Russia to significance Belarusian range to origination the invasion of Ukraine. All through the 2023 riot by way of the Russian mercenary Wagner Workforce, Lukashenko acted as mediator between Putin and eminent mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin, permitting him to be portrayed as a peacemaker.
“From being competitors they became … I wouldn’t say friends, but allies,” Astapenka, the previous diplomat, stated.
“And Putin needs Lukashenko to control Belarus.”
Ultimate January, Lukashenko signed a legislation combating opposition leaders in a foreign country from status in presidential elections and granting himself lifetime immunity from felony prosecution, and lifetime backup for himself and his folk, must he surrender.
“To an extent, he became a hostage of the system that he himself created,” Karbalevich stated.
“He couldn’t leave power even if he wanted to. He’s afraid for his life, for his freedom, and therefore he will hold on to his power to the end.”