Alaksandar Milinkievič became involved in the local politics of his home city, Hrodna, in the 1980s. Four years in Algiers setting up the Faculty of Physics at Sétif University, had given him a wider experience of the world than his contemporaries. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he entered national politics, becoming Chief of Staff to one of the opposition leaders. In 2005 he was chosen by the United Democratic Forces of Belarus as joint candidate of the opposition in the presidential elections of 2006, to stand against the authoritarian Alexander Lukashenko. He was held by the police before and after the elections on false charges of drunken driving, forgery, drug trafficking and leaving Belarus illegally.