Belarus leader sacks aide with close Moscow ties :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday sacked his influential chief of staff, in a move some analysts saw as a sign of the growing isolation of the hardline leader.

An official statement said that Ural Latypov, who had occupied the post since 2001, had been "freed from his post", as phrase usually implying dismissal.

The statement did not give reasons for the removal of one of the most powerful members of Lukashenko`s team. Prosecutor general Viktor Sheiman was named to replace him.

Latypov`s is the second major sacking in Belarus since Lukashenko, whose hardline rule made him a political pariah in the West, won a referendum in October allowing him to run for the third term in 2006.

Earlier this month, Lukashenko sacked Leonid Yerin, the head of the national security service.
Political analysts have said that Latypov and Yerin, both former officers of the Soviet KGB, had close links with old colleagues in Moscow who now play a prominent role in the entourage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the past few years relations between Belarus and its main ally, Russia, have worsened. Lukashenko`s political ambitions and commercial rows have prompted Moscow to go cold on his long-cherished hopes of forming a "union state".

Putin showed his displeasure by sending no congratulations to Lukashenko on the Oct. 17 referendum, although he did not join Western critics in branding the vote fraudulent.

"Lukashenko is now conducting an isolationist policy towards both the West and Russia," Vladimir Dorikhov, an analyst with Independent Institute for Social, Political and Economic Studies said.

"In that sense one may say that he is getting rid of people broadly described as the pro-Kremlin lobby," he added. "Latypov did not do anything wrong, he simply ceased being effective."