Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko is the President of Belarus, having assumed the post on 20 July 1994. Before his career as a politician, Lukashenko worked as director of a state-owned agricultural farm and spent time with the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army. When he first entered politics, he was seen as a champion against corruption and was the only deputy to vote against the independence of Belarus from the Soviet Union. Lukashenko opposed Western-backed "shock therapy" during the post-Soviet transition. He has retained Soviet-era policies, such as continued state ownership of key industries, despite objections from Western governments. Observers also contend that Lukashenko presides over a regime steeped in Soviet nostalgia. He responds that his policies are the only alternative to instability, and have spared Belarus from the poverty and oligarchy seen elsewhere in the former Soviet Republics. Belarus has been called "Europe's last dictatorship" by some Western journalists, on account of Lukashenko's self-described authoritarian style of government. 

August 30th, 1954 in Kopy? (Age 69)