Alexander lukashenko

Friday

Daniel DePetris

The dictator behind Europe’s next migrant crisis

From our US edition

Belarus, the former Soviet satellite state, isn’t exactly a global heavyweight. Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s authoritarian president, is an international pariah who is better at concocting conspiracy theories than he is at running a country. At $60 billion, the Belarusian economy is about the size of Rhode Island’s. Other than petroleum, cheese and dump trucks, Belarus doesn’t offer much in the way of exports. A once promising information technology sector is now gutted, as Lukashenko’s crackdown on dissent forces highly educated talent to flee the country for the Baltics. Lukashenko, however, is smarter than he looks.

lukashenko

Saturday

Tim Ogden

What does Belarus’s opposition leader want?

There is an assumption that those fighting tyranny must instead want Western-style democracy, that the arc of history bends towards liberal representative government, allied inevitably to Washington and Brussels. Many former Soviet Union countries saw their politburos overthrown by young middle-class people espousing the desire for this kind of politics — from the Rose Revolution in Georgia to the Orange Revolution and Euromaiden protests in Ukraine (whether or not they eventually received that form of government is a different matter). But there is no logical imperative that connects dissatisfaction towards an autocrat with the kind of government and geopolitical order that will replace him, whether in Eastern Europe or elsewhere.

Tuesday

Toby Young

Make America Normal Again

From our US edition

To win in November, Trump should seek inspiration from President Alexander Lukashenko, the 65-year-old autocrat who has ruled Belarus since 1994. He trounced his liberal opponent in the presidential election in August with 80 percent of the vote. I’m not suggesting Trump emulate Lukashenko’s methods. Among other things, the man dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’ disqualified his three main political opponents at the beginning of the race, imprisoning two of them. He has never won an election with less than 75 percent of the vote, although none have been found to be free and fair by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), an election monitoring body.

make america normal again

Thursday

Jack Clover

Is this the end for Europe’s last dictator?

Alexander Lukashenko, labelled by the Bush administration as ‘Europe’s last dictator’, was never going to go down without a fight. In his final public address before Belarus went to the polls he offered a thinly veiled warning to those who wish to remove him from power: ‘[Our Belarus] is rather naive and a little bit fragile but she is beloved and when you love something you do not give it up.’ On election day, Lukashenko delivered on his grim campaign promise. Official exit polls gave the incumbent an implausible 80 per cent of the vote: his fifth landslide in 26 years at the helm. The lion’s share of presumed electoral fraud happened before polls opened. State media announced that around 40 per cent of the electorate had opted to vote early.