Alexander Lukashenko, the last relentless dinosaur of the Soviet era

PARIS.- It is the last dinosaur of the Soviet era. In power since 1994, Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus, perfectly represents the handful of autocrats who do their utmost not to disappear: ruthless, unscrupulous, relentless, brutal, heartless, arrogant and opportunistic. But never eternal.

All he had to do was show up at his residence in Minsk, in a black uniform and a Kalashnikov in his hand, for the whole of Belarus, instead of trembling with fear, to burst out laughing. It was August 23. A few meters away, a huge crowd – more than 100,000 people – had again gathered in the Plaza de la Independencia to call on him to resign.

Although not in danger, Lukashenko, the man who vowed never to leave power, landed that day by helicopter on the palace grounds, with his 15-year-old son armed to the teeth. on his heels. After asking what those “rats” were doing there, he disappeared into the residence, without reading, for sure, the insults that flooded social networks.

Yet for the first time in nearly three decades, something had broken that day in the perfect mechanics assembled by the dictator. To win the presidential election of August 9, he had to organize a fraud of unprecedented scale. But the results were clear: her opponent, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, was a sure winner in the first round.

Once again under the international magnifying glass to hijack a commercial flight, in the past or the mass protests, nor international sanctions were enough to convince him that it was time to go. At just 67 years old, Lukashenko has ruled his country with an iron fist since 1994, two years younger than his Tajik counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, record holder for the post-Soviet space.

As always, he remembered his traditional score: 80% of the votes, a figure that its administrations received like a slap in the face. As always, the gigantic demonstrations that his noisy did not manage to disperse left him unperturbed, while television, controlled by “specialists” from Russia, never showed a glimmer of reality.

Precisely, in the midst of this popular turbulence, where even the workers of the agricultural and military vehicle factories – loyal among the faithful – seemed to be abandoning him, the permanence of the autocrat in power responded to the support of Moscow and to the unfailing loyalty of its security forces and its secret services (KGB), the very people who organized the hijacking of the Ryanair plane the day before yesterday to seize the young 26-year-old opponent , Roman Protassevich.

However, although drowned in blood, torture and persecution, the popular protest left a deep mark. The dictator’s efforts to convince public opinion were. become vain. His slow death appears like a caricature, a condensation of his endless 27-year reign. Lukashenko implores, promises and threatens with that ridiculously high pitched voice that is his trademark, but no one hears it. Even his legendary ability to navigate east and west begins to resemble a conjurer’s trick in which No one believes it anymore: his accusations of Russian interference, like those of an imminent NATO invasion, only elicit smiles of complacency.

But it would be reductive to summarize his personality and the special place that Lukashenko occupied in the history of his country. With him, a whole world is doing everything possible not to disappear, a unique blend of sovietism and avant-garde populism.

Often mistakenly presented as a man of the earth, Alexander Lukachencho is from the Mogilev region. Fatherless, he was director of a sovkoze, a collective farm, between 1987 and 1990. One of his “war wounds” was the fact that he had beaten a “lazy” tractor driver with his bare hands. . If not, his career was that of another apparatchik of the Communist Party, active in the ideological indoctrination of the workers.

In 1990, deputy of the Supreme Council of the Belarusian Republic, he joined the group of “Communists for the Republic”. Little known to the public, he prevailed in the presidential election of 1994, forging the image of a man of character, dedicated to the fight against corruption and walking around with a suitcase supposed to contain “evidence” of this corruption.

Days before the vote, he introduced himself as the alleged victim of an assassination attempt, the first in a long list of lies.

The elements that would form the basis of its authoritarian and social model were assembled with surprising rapidity. In 1996, the young president he changed the Constitution to his advantage, adding two years to his term. In 1999 and 2000, three of his main opponents disappeared, probably murdered.

But, in this region of the world where authoritarian hardening is almost a banality, the uniqueness of Lukashenko lies in another characteristic: while his counterparts sell modernization and openness to the world to their peoples, the Belarusian autocrat assumes a discourse that encourages Soviet nostalgia. So much so that in 1995 he granted the status of Russian as the official language of Belarus and restored a flag inspired by the Soviet period.

Lukashenko not only applied Sovietism for its folklore, but also practiced a truly protective social policy, especially with the workers. The less profitable factories were kept afloat with massive subsidies, guaranteed jobs and wages.

All this did not prevent the prevarication. Soon a small caste at the top of the state took over 75% of the country’s economy. However, the stability of this country protected from external torments, where order is maintained even with the death penalty, has enabled it to have the support of Russia, which massively subsidizes the economy through the supply of oil to reduced prices. That Belarusian refineries later sell in Europe.

But since nothing is eternal. His opportunist policy towards Moscow led to the gradual end of this system, placing the autocrat in difficulty, unable to keep his welfare state afloat.

Lukashenko’s model, nicknamed “batka” – the “daddy” of the nation – also implies a perfectly authoritarian behavior of the country. The top of the State is opaque, with a frequent rotation of the executives which makes it possible to calm the ambitions. The KGB is all-powerful. The media silenced, the opposition marginalized and repressed and the elections rigged.

The real problems started in the 2010s, with the democratic movements in Central Europe, in particular in Ukraine, and the brutal response given by Moscow. For, Lukashenko has always done everything to avoid greater integration of his country with Russia, a prospect that he nevertheless accepted when signing a union treaty in 1999.

Taking advantage of the crisis triggered by the annexation of Crimea and the unrest in eastern Ukraine, the Belarusian dictator has distanced himself from Moscow. By establishing himself as a mediator in the Dombass, he also won the sympathies of the West and even obtained the lifting of European sanctions upon the release of his last political prisoners. Yet he waited in vain for the billions that could have saved his regime from bankruptcy.

But since life is usually an eternal restart: after the brutal crackdown unleashed in the last election, the sanctions returned and Lukashenko had no choice but to reapply for the protective umbrella of Moscow.

“Everything before leaving, that to find himself expelled from his country, in a house on the outskirts of Moscow, as happened to his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Ianukovitch”, analyzes the French specialist Marie Mendras.

After 27 years in power, the one former US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice described as “Europe’s last dictator” remains the same as himself. His ultimate goal: to impose his son Viktor as his successor. Same mustache, same haircut, same taste for repression… At 45, Viktor Lukashenko is his father’s clone. To the point that he is preparing to modify the law to transfer executive power to the National Security Council, where his offspring has reigned since 2007.