28 Sept 2008

Farming roots of Belarussia's leader

As Belarus - described by the US as the last dictatorship in Europe - prepares to hold parliamentary elections, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse traces the roots of its President, Alexander Lukashenko, to a farm in the village of Gorodets.

The collective farm is a two-hour drive from the Belarussian capital, Minsk.

There are hundreds of cows, feeding, waiting to be milked.

It was here, in the dying years of the Soviet Union, amid the mud, the tractors and the smell of manure, that Alexander Lukashenko cut his political teeth before he was first elected president in 1994.

"He was a strict boss," says Tamara Krotikova, who worked on the farm in the days when the president was the manager here in the late 1980s. "A strict boss, but a good man," she adds.

As for her life, Ms Krotikova said it was getting better all the time.

All she needs, she says, is a little more money - her pension is just about $100 (£54) per month. So, who would she be voting for in these elections?

"There's only one person who can raise our pension and that's Lukashenko - only if he gives the order," she says.

"As for the rest of them, they're not going to give us anything, whatever their name is. The president makes the laws and we obey them."   BBC NEWS