Luka the bad

摘要

Belarus is not a lucky country. A third of its people were killed in the second world war; many others died in Stalin's purges. The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, in 1986, contaminated a fifth of the country. Since 1994, the lorn Belarussians have been governed by President Alexander Lukashenka. Should Mr Lukashenka win a referendum on October 17th to allow him to run for a third term in 2006, they may be stuck with him indefinitely. Independence was disorienting for Belarus, which had always been dominated by its Russian neighbour, and was even quite prosperous in the late Soviet era. After Mr Lukashenka, formerly a collective-farm manager, won the first presidential election in 1994, he set about reversing history. He retained the old name of the KGB and pursued a policy of ever-closer union with Russia. He also halted economic reforms, propping up state-owned enterprises, setting targets for growth and rebuffing advice from the IMF.