Lukašenka Aliaksandr Ryhoravič

From 1975 to 1977 he was a political instructor in the Armed Forces, and from 1977 to 1978 he worked at the Communist Youth Committee of the Mahilioŭ City Food Chamber of Commerce. From 1978 to 1990 was the executive secretary of the Škloŭ regional branch of the organisation Knowledge. From 1980 to 1982 he served in army as deputy commander for political affairs of a tank troop. In 1982 he was appointed deputy chairman of the Udarnik collective farm in Škloŭ district, in 1983 - deputy director of the building materials plant in Škloŭ, and in 1985 - 1987 worked as a secretary of the Party Committee of the Lenin collective farm in Škloŭ district. In March 1987, he became director of the collective farm Haradziec in Škloŭ district.
From 1990 to 1994 he worked as a deputy of the Supreme Council (Parliament) of Belarus. In the Council he headed an interim commission which studied the activity of commercial structures operating under national and local government bodies. In 1993-1994 he was a head of an interim commission on fight against corruption. In 1994 he won presidential election and became the first president of independent Belarus. In 1995 through a referendum Lukašenka initiated introduction of Russian as the second official language, the change of state symbols and integration with Russia. In 1996 he initiated a referendum on the expansion of the constitutional powers of the president.
Lukašenka was re-elected in the elections of 2001, 2006 and 2010, none of which were recognized as democratic by the European Union and the United States. As a result of the 2004 referendum he received the possibility to be re-elected to the presidency an unlimited number of times.