Belaya Rus

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Belarusian Party "Belaya Rus" (Belaya Rus) is a centrist political party in Belarus that supports President Alexander Lukashenko. It is pro-Russia and aims for Belarus to have energy independence.

Origin and status
- 2007: The movement started as the Republican Public Association Belaya Rus (RPA Belaya Rus) to back Lukashenko’s presidency. The founding congress in Grodno on November 17, 2007 had 470 delegates; Alexander Radkov was elected chairman.
- December 12, 2007: It was registered as a public association.
- October 25, 2008: The first congress of the association took place, with about 82,000 members and 380 delegates.
- 2018: A major congress suggested converting into a political party, but the organization remained a public association. In January 2018, a large meeting elected Gennady Davydko as head.
- June 18, 2022: At the fourth congress, Oleg Romanov (then rector of Saint Euphrosyne Polotsk State University) was elected chairman.
- March 18, 2023: A large congress with about 1,000 delegates voted to create a new political party. The leadership approved Romanov’s chairmanship, and Grigory Azarenok joined the leadership council. The party also received support from Russia’s United Russia.

Elections and leadership
- The party is closely linked to Lukashenko’s government and supports his policies.
- In the 2024 Belarusian parliamentary elections, Belaya Rus won about 46.4% of the vote and 51 seats in the House of Representatives.

Membership and ideology
- Ideology: centrism, statism, agrarianism; pro-Lukashenko, pro-Russia, and in the long term aims for Belarus’s energy independence.
- Membership numbers have varied. As a public association, it reported large membership (tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands) at different times. The party itself started with about 15,948 members at its founding congress, while the broader association had many more members who were not registered as party members.

Summary
Belaya Rus began in 2007 as a public association to support Lukashenko and evolved into a political party in 2023. It remains the main pro-Lukashenko group in Belarus, with strong ties to Russia and a focus on centrist, statist, and agrarian policies.