Uładzimir Ivanavič Hančaryk or Vladimir Ivanovich Goncharik (, ; born 29 April 1940) is a Belarusian politician.

Early life

Hančaryk was born in

Lahojsk Lahoysk is a town in Minsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Lahoysk District. As of 2025, it has a population of 15,567. History First chronicled in 1078, Lahoysk was the centre of a small 12th-century principality, ...

, a town outside of Minsk, in the

Byelorussian SSR The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; ; ), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and ...

Political career

Beginning in 1986, Hančaryk was a chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus. Hančaryk was the only opposition candidate who stood against incumbent

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

in the 2001 Belarusian presidential election. His campaign was supported by fellow opposition candidate Siamion Domash, who withdrew his candidacy and urged his supporters to vote for Hančaryk. Many considered Hančaryk to be the best candidate for the opposition because of his previous government experience and his centrist stances. Hančaryk ultimately lost the election by Lukashenko by a sixty percent margin, according to official results from the

Central Election Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

. However, the elections were considered

fraudulent In law, fraud is intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover mone ...

by independent observers.

References

Sources

2001 Belarusian election profile
1940 births Living people People from Lahoysk district Belarusian trade unionists Candidates for President of Belarus Soviet trade unionists {{Belarus-politician-stub