English

Lukashenka turns 56

Alyaksandr Lukashenka turned 56 on August 30. According to the Belarusian leader’s press office, on his birthday, Mr. Lukashenka was on a working trip to the Homyel region, as quoted by BelaPAN.

Mr. Lukashenka was born in the village of Kopys, Vitsyebsk region, on August 30, 1954. He graduated from the history department of the Mahilyow Teachers' Training Institute in 1975. In 1975-77, he served with the KGB Border Troops. Then he worked as a secretary of the Young Communist League at a trade enterprise in Shklow, Mahilyow region. In 1978, he became a secretary at the Shklow district office of the Znaniye (Knowledge) association, which propagandized atheism. In 1980-82, he again served with the Soviet Army.

In the period between 1982 and 1985, Mr. Lukashenka was deputy director general of a building materials enterprise in Shklow. He also studied by correspondence at the Horki Agricultural Academy in the Mahilyow region and graduated from it in 1985. In 1985-87, he was chairman of the Communist Party cell in a collective farm in the Mahilyow region. In 1987, he was appointed to head a state farm called Haradzets in the Shklow district.

In 1990, he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of Belarus (parliament). In April 1993, he became chairman of the Supreme Soviet's anti-corruption commission. His reports, full of accusations against high-ranking officials, made him widely popular.

Mr. Lukashenka was elected president of Belarus in relatively free and fair elections in the summer of 1994, when voters warmed to him as a "man of the people" running against an aloof figure from the country's Soviet-era elite. In the first round of the elections, he reportedly won 44.8 percent of the vote, compared with 17.3 percent for second-place Prime Minister Vyachaslaw Kebich. In the runoff round, he received 80.1 percent against Mr. Kebich's 19.9 percent.

As a result of a constitutional referendum in November 1996, he extended his presidential term by two years to 2001.

In September 2001, he was reelected president for a new five-year term. The central election commission announced that he won 75.6 percent of the vote, compared with 15.4 percent for the united opposition's candidate, trade union leader Uladzimir Hancharyk, and 2.5 percent for Liberal Democratic Party leader Syarhey Haydukevich.

In 2004, he initiated a national referendum on the removal of the two-term constitutional limit on the presidency. According to the central election commission, Mr. Lukashenka won a sweeping victory, with 79.4 percent of all registered voters saying "yes" to allowing him to stand for reelection for a third term.

In March 2006, Mr. Lukashenka was declared the winner with 83 percent of the vote in a presidential election condemned by his opponents as a farce.

Opposition candidates Alyaksandr Milinkevich and Alyaksandr Kazulin reportedly gained 6.1 and 2.2 percent, respectively, and Mr. Haydukevich was said to have received 3.5 percent. An independent survey found that Mr. Lukashenka won 63.6 percent of the vote and Mr. Milinkevich received 20.6 percent.