Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
17 January 2012
Europe’s Last Dictator
Holds Power by Violence
In the former Soviet republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko holds on to power through the brutal suppression of dissent and rigging elections
On December 19, 2010 the people of Belarus went to the polls in a presidential election.
The result, which nobody believes is accurate, was that 80 percent of the people
voted to keep the incumbent, Alexander Lukashenko (right) in power.
But, as James Kirchick of Radio Free Europe wrote in the Globe and Mail, (December 2010), “tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a blatantly fraudulent presidential election.”
They were greeted by baton-
Old Soviet Style Leadership
In 1991, as the Soviet Union was falling apart, Alexander Lukashenko was a member of the Belarusian Parliament.
Belarus was still part of the disintegrating Communist state and Lukashenko was a
vocal supporter of the short-
For a couple of years after the Soviet collapse, Belarus enjoyed a flirtation with democracy until the presidential election of 1994. That was when Lukashenko rose to the nation’s top job and immediately began to consolidate all power into his own hands.
A BBC News profile quotes him as saying in August 2003, “An authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it. You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people’s lives.”
Life is difficult in Belarus
It’s doubtful most Belarusians would think their lives anything but ruined under Lukashenko’s regime:
- The United Nations Development report for 2011 places Belarus at 65st in its desirability as a place to live; well below its former Soviet satellite neighbours of Latvia (43), Lithuania (40), and Poland (39);
- Transparency International ranks it as the 143th most corrupt country in the world out of the 178 nations it studied in 2011;
- International Living Magazine’s 2011 Quality of Living Index says the country is 60th, placing l below Panama and Jamaica; and,
- For 2011, Freedom House gives Belarus its lowest grade possible on political rights and next to lowest on civil liberties. It lists the country among its “Not Free” group.
Crackdown Following Election
Alexander Lukashenko seems determined to hang on to power through his tried and true methods of intimidation.
Following the arrest of hundreds of civil rights activists Radio Free Europe’s Kirkchick reports, “most of the nine opposition presidential candidates were viciously beaten and arrested.”
On December 30, 2010, Reporters without Borders issued an alert that independent journalists in the country are being rounded up: “Police and KBG officers seized computers, audio recorders, cameras and video cameras when they raided the offices of European Radio of Belarus (ERB) on 25 December.”
The journalist’s group says that these and other raids show the government “is trying to shut down all channels of communication and suppress all forms of criticism.”
Sources
“Put the Screws on Europe’s Last Dictator.” James Kirchick, Globe and Mail, December 30, 2010.
“Profile: Alexander Lukashenko.” BBC News, January 9, 2007.
“Crackdown on Media Intensifies, KGB Raids on Media.” Reporters Without Borders, December 30, 2010.
“EU Steps up Legal Pressure on Hungary over Laws.” Claire Davenport and Krisztina Than, Reuters, January 17, 2012.
© Canada and the World, January 2012
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SOVIET DOMINATION
At the end of World War Two, the Soviet Union occupied most of Eastern Europe after its forces had liberated the region from Nazi German conquest.
The Soviets installed puppet dictators in:
Albania
Belarus
Bulgaria
Czechoslovakia (now divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia)
East Germany (Germany was divided into East and West)
Estonia
Hungary
Latvia
Lithuania
Poland
Romania
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 all these countries ousted the dictators.
Belarus is the only one to have returned to the strong man form of government.
FLIRTING WITH
THE OLD WAYS
Reuters News Agency reports from Hungary (January 2012) that “Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s conservative Fidesz party has been condemned by the international community for introducing measures that threaten the independence of the media, the judiciary, and the central bank since sweeping to power in 2010.”
The European Union (EU), which admitted Hungary as a member in 2004, is threatening legal action against the government.
A condition of membership in the EU is that a country’s people must enjoy full democratic rights.
“Despite mass arrests, show trials and widespread allegations of torture, Europe has done little more than add new names to its list of Belarusian officials that are banned from travelling to the West.”
December 2011