Alexander Lukashenko

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko, born August 30, 1954, in Kopys in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, worked as a state farm director and served in the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army before entering politics, winning election to the Supreme Soviet in 1990 and gaining prominence in 1993 as chairman of a legislative anti-corruption committee that accused senior officials of embezzlement. Under a new constitution adopted in 1994 he won Belarus's first presidential election as an independent candidate, taking 80.1 percent of the vote in a runoff on July 10, 1994, and has served as president continuously since his inauguration ten days later, making him Europe's longest-tenured head of state. He has since won repeated reelection, including in 2001, 2006, 2010, 2015, 2020 and 2025, contests that international observers have consistently rejected as neither free nor fair, most sharply after the 2020 election, which the European Union, United States and United Kingdom refused to recognize amid mass protests and allegations of large-scale fraud. He consolidated power through referendums in 1995 and 1996 that granted him authority to dismiss parliament, has maintained a state-controlled economy and Soviet-era state symbolism, and has developed close ties with Russia.