Alexathe official served as chairman of the Minsk Regional Executive Committee. His predecessor, Roman Golovchenko, has moved to the position of chairman of the National Bank.
The host of the livestream "Azaryonok.Directly" Grigory Azaryonok discussed these personnel changes on March 10, 2025, with SB. Belarus Today correspondent Lyudmila Gladkaya. She recalled that Lukashenko called the appointments a fulfillment of his promise to bring a younger generation into the country's leadership. In response, Azaryonok compared the Belarusian political scene to Germany’s, countering the argument that "we’re always told to look to the West, Europe, and democracy as examples." He claimed that the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Germany, which, in alliance with the Christian Social Union (CSU), won the 2025 parliamentary elections, was an unknown figure.
"Who knew this Merz guy, who has now taken over Germany? Who even knew him a month ago? No one. He wasn’t on anybody's radar, nobody cared about him. Everyone was looking at whether [Leader of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance Sahra] Wagenknecht would take over, or maybe liberals like Scholz, or 'Alternative for Germany.' And this Merz? He was just some clerk, some bureaucrat in the Bundestag. But he’s tied to [the international investment firm] BlackRock, an American company. That’s it. They picked him and made him chancellor. And no one in Germany asked any questions," Azaryonok said.
Friedrich Merz won his first election—to the European Parliament—in 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2000, he was elected chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group but lost the leadership to Angela Merkel two years later. In 2009, Merz stepped away from politics and shifted to business. He returned in 2018, attempting to win the party chairmanship. Merz managed to return to the Bundestag in 2022 and later became the leader of the CDU.
The Christian Democratic Union is one of Germany’s largest and most influential parties, led by Angela Merkel for 18 years. Under her leadership, the CDU won nearly every Bundestag election. After Merkel stepped down, the Christian Democrats found themselves in the opposition. But Friedrich Merz rebuilt the party’s support. During last summer’s European Parliament elections, the CDU/CSU bloc emerged as the frontrunner in Germany. Following that, midterm political polls in September 2024 showed strong support for the conservatives.
At the end of 2024, Germans were asked who they wanted as the next chancellor of Germany. CDU leader Friedrich Merz had the highest approval rating at 28%. By early February 2025, that number had risen.
