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Unpredictable, authoritarian and staunchly pro-Russian, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko casts himself as a plain-spoken strongman and “president of the ordinary people”.<\/p>\n
Described in the West as “Europe’s last dictator”, the 70-year-old has led the eastern European country for almost all of its post-Soviet history, jailing hundreds of opponents throughout his more than 30-year rule.<\/p>\n
He is running for an unprecedented seventh term this month, after violently crushing mass protests against vote-rigging that erupted after a 2020 ballot.<\/p>\n
A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko seems unbothered by his characterisation as a ruthless autocrat, telling lawmakers in an annual address in 2022: “I am a dictator, it’s hard for me to understand democracy.”<\/p>\n
– From farmer to leader –<\/p>\n
Born in 1954 in the then-Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, Lukashenko held management positions at various state-run collective farms before being elected to the country’s Supreme Soviet in 1990.<\/p>\n
He won Belarus’s first democratic presidential election as an independent in 1994, campaigning as an anti-corruption crusader who backed closer ties with Moscow.<\/p>\n
The following year he strong-armed lawmakers into holding a referendum on making Russian an official language, changing the flag to resemble its Soviet-era design and giving him the right to dissolve parliament.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has further cemented his rule with consecutive elections that observers and rights groups have said were rigged.<\/p>\n
Before and after the latest presidential ballot on 9 August 2020, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest political repression and allegations of electoral fraud.<\/p>\n
His security services responded by arresting tens of thousands in\u00a0sweeping crackdowns that saw hundreds beaten and tortured in custody, according to rights groups.<\/p>\n
At the height of the unrest, Lukashenko flew over a rally in a helicopter wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying a Kalashnikov rifle, describing the demonstrators as “rats”.<\/p>\n
Opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in place of her jailed husband, was among the at least 100,000 to flee the country amid the crackdown.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko said before the vote that Belarus could never be led by a woman because she “would collapse, poor thing.”<\/p>\n
Many activists who remained — like activist Maria Kolesnikova — were jailed incommunicado.<\/p>\n
There are at least 1,200 political prisoners including politicians and journalists in Belarusian jails, according to human rights monitor Viasna.<\/p>\n
– Strong support of Russia –<\/p>\n
Though steadfast in his support for Russia and Putin, the Belarusian leader spent years trying to pitch himself as a bridge between Europe and Moscow.<\/p>\n
But with ties with the EU already shattered by his 2020 crackdown, Lukashenko allowed Putin to use his country as a springboard to invade Ukraine in February 2022.<\/p>\n
In an interview with AFP in the early days of the offensive, he blamed the West — not Moscow — for the outbreak of the conflict.<\/p>\n
“You have fomented the war and are continuing it. If Russia had not got ahead of you, members of NATO, you would have organised and struck a blow against it,” he said.<\/p>\n
In 2023, Lukashenko brokered a deal with then mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to end his brief uprising against Russia’s military leadership, saving Putin some embarrassment.<\/p>\n
That same year Putin placed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, with Lukashenko’s approval.<\/p>\n
The Belarusian leader has promised to use them “without hesitation” if Minsk is attacked.<\/p>\n
– Not going anywhere –<\/p>\n
At home, Lukashenko often espouses wacky policy proposals that have drawn both scorn and ridicule from Belarusians.<\/p>\n
During the pandemic, he dismissed the coronavirus as a hoax and recommended drinking vodka and taking steam baths.<\/p>\n
In October 2022, he decreed a ban on all price increases to tame what he called “exorbitant” inflation.<\/p>\n
When the European Union threatened to sanction Minsk for brazenly intercepting a Ryanair plane to arrest a dissident, the Belarusian leader suggested he would flood the bloc with “drugs and migrants.”<\/p>\n
Later that year, thousands of people from Asian and African countries illegally crossed from Belarus into neighbouring Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.<\/p>\n
Some analysts have suggested he is grooming his son Nikolai, who has accompanied his father to many official ceremonies, as a successor.<\/p>\n
Lukashenko has repeatedly said he will leave power “when necessary” — but there are no signs he is ready to step down soon.<\/p>\n
“I am not going to die, guys,” he told officials in May 2023, after missing several high-profile public events.\u00a0“You’re going to have to put up with me for a very long time.”<\/p>\n
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