Belarussian ‘dictator’ stuck in the middle
MINSK, BELARUS— Alexander Lukashenko has been president of Belarus for so long that he has been called Europe’s last dictator.
But the pro-Russian insurgency in Ukraine shook him and, in an interview, he called on the U.S. to play a central role in the Ukrainian recovery, warned that Belarus wouldn’t become Russia’s “northwestern province” and even poked a finger at Vladimir Putin.
“I’m not Europe’s last dictator anymore,” Lukashenko, 60, said with a chuckle. “There are dictators a bit worse than me, no? I’m the lesser evil already.”
The two-hour interview — in the new, stadiumsized, mostly empty marble-and-glass Independence Palace — showed a ruler engaged in a complex acrobatic act. He is trying to keep a firm grip over his country while balancing between a re-assertive Russia, war-torn Ukraine and the European Union, all of them his neighbours.
Lukashenko, the longest serving leader in Europe, has used Soviet-style electoral manoeuvres since first being elected in 1994 and has been in office nearly as long as his country has existed as an independent state. He has been Putin’s closest ally and Putin is his.
Yet with some comments he defied Putin and with others he appeased him. He said the U.S. and its allies were mistaken to think that the Russian president was seeking to restore an empire but added that Putin and Russia react emotionally to open challenges.
He made a point of declaring Belarusian independence, saying his nation of 9.5 million will fight “to the last man” against any outside force that may threaten it. There are, he added, “a lot of people in politics in Russia who think imperialistically and they don’t see Belarus as anything other than a northwestern province.”
Putin and Lukashenko traded congratulations Thursday on a union state formed in 1996. The Russian leader praised the alliance, saying it served a base for a wider economic union with Kazakhstan and Armenia.
The introduction of a common currency or a deeper integration of the bloc isn’t on the table, Lukashenko said in the interview. “You know that in the Eurasian space, Russia is the central state, the most powerful state,” he said. “But to become an empire, a member of some empire, a province in this empire — you know, we’re probably not ready for that yet, neither in Kazakhstan nor in Belarus.”
Lukashenko’s increasingly independent stance and concerns over Russia’s role in Ukraine appear to have earned him more support ahead of this year’s presidential elections. The opposition he defanged over the past two decades is striking a notably gentle stance.
Vladimir Neklyaev, for example, who ran against Lukashenko in 2010 and was beaten and thrown into prison before the election ended, said in an interview in Minsk that the opposition should avoid active protests so as not to provide Russia with an excuse to interfere.
Alexander Milinkevich, a pro-democracy politician who challenged Lukashenko in the 2006 elections, said he supported the president’s pro-independence actions although he did complain about the country’s lack of freedom.
Lukashenko mockingly took note of the opposition’s weakness, saying in the interview, “I don’t need another opposition, I should nurture this one, preserve it the way it is.”