 Ever since he was running for president in 1994, he's always been trying to project this image of an honest, ordinary guy, very down to earth, who just wanted to eradicate corruption, to make all those bureaucrats work for the benefit of ordinary people. As a born populist with charisma, he really appealed to many Belarusians at the time, workers and farmers. He kind of heard their complaints, he promised to deal with them. He even spoke Russian with this strong