The next President of Belarus already has plenty of experience of the trappings of high office, having overseen military parades, sat in on Cabinet meetings, and met several world leaders when he accompanies his father, the current president Alexander Lukashenko, on trips abroad.
But there is something unusual about the nomination of Kolya Lukashenko as the nation’s leader-in-waiting – he is seven years old.
Mr Lukashenko has two adult sons, but is estranged from his wife, who it is believed now lives on a cattle farm in rural Belarus. Nikolai, or Kolya for short, was born much later, and the identity of his mother has never been made public.
