• DOI:10.1080/1080/09668130500199509
• Corpus ID: 153436132

Europe's Last Dictatorship: The Roots and Perspectives of Authoritarianism in ‘White Russia’

@article{Marples2005EuropesLD,
  title={Europe's Last Dictatorship: The Roots and Perspectives of Authoritarianism in ‘White Russia’},
  author={David R. Marples},
  journal={Europe-Asia Studies},
  year={2005},
  volume={57},
  pages={895 - 908}
}

• David R. Marples
• Published 1 September 2005
• Political Science
• Europe-Asia Studies

THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS REMAINS one of the lesser known of the former Soviet republics' and is perceived increasingly as an anomaly among European states: a throwback to Soviet times run by a president who has amended the constitution in three state-engineered referendums (1995, 1996 and 2004) that have ostensibly guaranteed him a lifetime presidency.2 He is shunned by the world's democratic powers; indeed, a former US ambassador referred to the country as 'the Cuba of Europe'3 and to President Alyaksander Lukashenka as a 'dictator'. US president George W. Bush included Belarus as an integral part of the so-called 'Axis of Evil'. On 18 January 2005, at hearings in Washington, the newly appointed Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice named Cuba, Myanmar, Belarus and Zimbabwe as 'outposts of tyranny' that needed to be watched closely by the United States.4 In 2004, at a conference sponsored by the Foreign Ministry of Latvia in Riga, Senator John McCain, head of a US delegation, declared that Lukashenka was a 'tyrant' who should be removed from power and President Bush made similar comments during a visit to Latvia in May 2005.5 There are few world leaders who can attract such