Mr Novikau receives a pension of a civil servant. He is heading the Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines in Tourism and Hospitality at the Belarusian State University of Physical Education (since 2009)

Vasil Novikau was born on February 21, 1946 in the village of Lamachyna of the Orsha rayon, Vitsebsk region. He was the eleventh child of a railway worker.

Philosopher by education (graduated from Leningrad State University), in Soviet times, he made a career as a party official and became an Assistant to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPB (1989).

In the presidential election of 1994, he ran from the already established in 1991 Party of Communists of Belarus (PCB), which declared itself the successor of the Soviet Communist Party. (In 2009, the BCP was renamed into the Belarusian Left Party Fair World, headed by Syarhei Kalyakin). Mr Novikau is the only candidate who openly declared commitment to socialist values. He has called for a halt in reforms and “returning to people what was taken from them.” For that he became a character in a folk song “We want to look at that Vasil at least from a distance”

He finished last in the elections, but a year later the Communists received a majority of the party seats in the Supreme Council of the 13th convocation, where Mr Novikau became First Vice-Speaker. He opposed the 1996 referendum, the main result of which was the expansion of the presidential powers and joined the opposition.

In 1998, he ceased his opposition activities and immediately received a government post – Adviser of the Embassy of Belarus in Moldova. He then defeated his post-doctoral degree and became Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (2004-2008).

Vasil Novikau is married with two daughters.