Alaksandar Milinkevic

Alaksandar Uładzimieravič Milinkievič (Belarusian: Аляксандар Уладзімеравіч Мілінкевіч, romanized: Alyaksandar Uladzimyeravich Milinkyevich, Russian: Александр Владимирович Милинкевич, romanized: Aleksandr Vladimirovič Milinkievič, born 25 July 1947 in Grodno) is a Belarusian politician. He was nominated by the leading opposition parties in Belarus to run against incumbent Alexander Lukashenko in the 2006 presidential election. Milinkevič was born in 1947 in Grodno. After graduating from the University of Grodno, he defended his Ph.D. thesis at the Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. Between 1980 and 1984 he was in charge of the (then forming) Faculty of Physics at the University of Sétif in Algiers. He also served as a docent at the University of Grodno between 1978 and 1980, and then from 1984 on to 1990. At that time he also started to cooperate with local city authorities as chief of one of the committees. Soon he reached the rank of deputy mayor of the city.

In 2001 he was the chief of staff of Siamion Domash, one of the opposition leaders running for president in the 2001 presidential elections of Belarus. In October 2005 he was chosen by the United Democratic Forces of Belarus as the joint candidate of the opposition in the presidential elections of 2006.

On 12 December 2006 he was awarded the Sakharov Prize by the European Parliament.

He is the recipient of the seventh Hanno R. Ellenbogen Citizenship Award, awarded annually by Prague Society for International Cooperation and the Global Panel Foundation (de).