So called president of Belarus Lukashenko, described by Washington as Europe's Last Dictator has been in power in his tightly controlled nation of 10 million since 1994, cracking down on political dissent and the independent media and squeezing non-governmental groups.
It's interesting that Belarus has got its independence from the Soviet Union in August 1991.
A new constitution went into effect on March 30, 1994. The new document created the office of president, declared Belarus a democracy with separation of powers, granted freedom of religion, and proclaimed Belarus's goal of becoming a neutral, nonnuclear state. The winner of the quickly organized election was Aleksandr Lukashenko.
So, basically the first dictator and the first President of Belarus were elected in the first really democratic elections. How ironic and sad it is - dictator Lukashenko was elected democratically back in 1994. After that point any democracy in Belarus dissappeared. Lukashenko got rid of all the presidential candidates (they dissappeared before the elections) back in September 2001 and re-elected himself.
Also his re-election in March 2006 was condemned as fraudulent by the opposition and Western governments and his regime was slapped with U.S. and European Union sanctions. His re-election in December 2010 was also fraudulent (this time he got less than 50% of votes (about 32%) and many other REAL presidential candidates were sent to jails - Andrey Sannikov (5 year sentence), Nikolai Statkevich (6 year sentence), Dmitriy Uss (5.5 year sentence), Vladimir Neklyaev (2 year sentence), Ales Michalevich run away to Czech Republic.
Please, help to FREE BELARUS from the dictator Lukashenko & his gang members!
Thank you.
