Resetting deadlines like Putin’s: Lukashenka wants to change the Belarusian Constitution

On February 27, a referendum on amendments to the Constitution will be held in Belarus. Self-proclaimed President Alexander Lukashenko calls the upcoming changes an evolutionary path of the country's development, while the opposition calls it a fiction and another attempt to usurp power. Edition with the BBC told about the changes.

Photo: Shutterstock

In January 2022, Nikolai Vitikov, a pensioner from the village of Teryukha in the Gomel region, submitted his ideas for a new Constitution to the Mayak regional newspaper.

But a few days later, 68-year-old Vitikov's house was broken into with a search, after which the "rural provocateur" was sent to a pre-trial detention center. He faces up to 5 years in prison for inciting social hatred.

As it turned out, Vitikov is far from the only one who fell into the hands of law enforcement officers for trying to take part in the creation of a new Constitution, which the authorities themselves call "people's".

Andrey Dubinin, a resident of Vysokoe, Brest region, was detained after he suggested that “bald and mustachioed” people should not be allowed to vote.

“No one can blame me that we had an absolute dictatorship here and we did not give people the opportunity to speak out. Everyone who wanted to do this spoke out,” Alexander Lukashenko said at a meeting on the preparation of a new text of the Constitution.

Even before the start of voting, many countries announced that they would not recognize the results of the referendum.

Very heavy powers

During the 27 years of his rule, Alexander Lukashenko changed the Constitution (or “improved”, as the pro-government media write) twice. In 1996, the president's term in office was extended and his powers expanded. And in 2004, the limit on the number of presidential terms was completely abolished.

For the first time, Lukashenka raised the issue of the third amendment of the Constitution of Belarus back in 2016, explaining this by the need of the times.

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Especially often, Alexander Lukashenko began to talk about amendments to the Constitution in the midst of protests after the presidential elections in August 2020, when thousands of people took to the streets of Belarusian cities.

Speaking at a wheeled tractor factory in front of workers shouting “Go away!” in unison, an enraged Lukashenka replied that there would be no new elections until he was killed, and the country needed constitutional reform.

“Come, sit down and work on the Constitution,” Alexander Lukashenko said then. “We put it up for a referendum, we adopt the Constitution, and I will transfer my powers under the Constitution to you, but not under pressure.”

Since then, the authoritarian leader has not missed an opportunity to remind about the need for amendments to the country's fundamental law, motivating them either by the will of the people, or by the natural process of change, or by an excessive burden on the president.

“The Constitution needs to be changed, because the powers that the head of state has today are very difficult for a person,” Lukashenko said during a speech before the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly late last year. “In addition, it is unknown how such unlimited powers would be used by a person who, if we simulate the situation, seized power by force.”

According to lawyer and former employee of the presidential administration of Belarus Artem Proskalovich, in 2020 Lukashenka tried to reduce the degree of tension in society “saying that there will be a new Constitution, and with it new elections.”

Belarusian opposition politician Anatoly Lebedko believes that it was not Lukashenka, but Russian President Vladimir Putin who initiated the constitutional reform, when his Belarusian counterpart looked politically weak.

“There was a danger that these protests would spread across the border and sweep across Russia,” suggests Anatoly Lebedko. “Therefore, it was very important for him that they should decline, and in his view, the “Russian experience” should be used for this. He strongly recommended that Lukashenko talk about constitutional reform as a possibility of overcoming the crisis, mitigating the situation - a kind of carrot for the protesters.”

“Putin needs to find the legitimacy that Lukashenko lost in August 2020,” explains Lebedko. “In his view, the referendum gives formal grounds to say: the people supported Lukashenko, we are working with the legitimate head of state.”

Who wrote the constitution

To work on the amendments, Alyaksandr Lukashenka assembled a constitutional commission, mainly consisting of government officials. And he led it himself. Parliament Speaker Natalya Kachanova became deputy head of the commission.

It was also joined by the "Round Table of Democratic Forces" (KSDF), headed by Yuri Voskresensky, who was on the side of the opposition before the presidential elections, ended up in a pre-trial detention center, was released, and now former associates call him "the mouthpiece of power."

It was Voskresensky who called on the emigrating oppositionists to return to Belarus and take part in the creation of the draft of the new Constitution, and then wondered why they were in no hurry to do this.

The authorities have repeatedly emphasized that this is a people's constitution, in the creation of which the citizens of Belarus should participate, and tried in every possible way to demonstrate this.

So, in January of this year, at a meeting where amendments to the Constitution were discussed, Alexander Lukashenko said that the commission had received about seven thousand proposals from all over the country, and that the project was the result of numerous discussions.

Yuri Voskresensky traveled all over the country and was photographed either with employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, or with school teachers.

Actions “Towards a referendum” were held at Belarusian factories, and on February 7, pro-government performers performed a campaign concert in support of the future voting at the National Airport of Minsk. Airport staff waved green-and-red paper flags, “given applause to the musicians and sang along with joy,” pro-government media wrote.

According to political scientist Anatoly Lebedko, Alexander Lukashenko personally was the main author of the Constitution (by the way, he himself confirmed this: “Lawyers wrote with a pen, and I dictated”), because he does not trust such an important matter to anyone else.

“He made adjustments himself, I am absolutely convinced of this. No one will do a better job for Lukashenko than Lukashenko himself,” Lebedko believes.

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This time, the authorities decided not to burden themselves with the formalities of the last presidential campaign and even refused to publish the names of members of precinct commissions. The CEC motivated this by fears for their safety.

Earlier, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry stated that they would not open polling stations for the referendum abroad “because of the small number of citizens registered with the consulate.”

"The right to sit on several chairs"

According to the published draft Constitution, the All-Belarusian People's Assembly, the highest representative body of power (it consists of about 1200 people), will become part of the state structure.

It will be led by a presidium with a chairman (or a life-long senator who is not elected by the people), in whose role experts see Alexander Lukashenko, although he himself denies this.

Theoretically, Lukashenka will be able to simultaneously hold the post of president and chairman of the National Assembly, at least until the next election. In addition, the chairman of the All-Belarusian People's Assembly can impeach the incumbent president, as well as protect himself from persecution for the actions he committed as head of state.

“The Supreme National Assembly is an incomprehensible cell from the point of view of constitutional law, a fourth power in which all three are mixed,” says lawyer Artem Proskalovich. — The Constitution, which already does not provide for any separation of powers and a system of checks and balances, becomes even more complicated and blurs the boundaries of both competence and responsibility. For the period when Lukashenko combines two posts, it turns out that the controlled body (the president) will simultaneously be the controlling body.”

“He gave himself the right to sit on several chairs - to be the president and head of the People’s Assembly - this is a clear trend that the main goal of the constitutional reform is to retain power using undemocratic instruments,” says Anatoly Lebedko. “This is a transfer of authority from the right pocket to the left, and the jacket is the same.”

In addition, the limitation of presidential powers to two terms will return to the Constitution - something that was removed from the previous version also through a referendum (its results in 2004 were questioned by many).

Thus, the President of Belarus can hold office for no more than two terms, however, the terms during which he held this post before the adoption of amendments to the Constitution will not be taken into account (the procedure resembles law on resetting Putin's terms).

This means that if he wins the next presidential election, Lukashenka could be in power until 2035.

Tear or throw away the ballot: the position of the democratic forces

“The referendum is a deception and a crime in which we are being persuaded to take part,” says the website of the Golos platform, which intends to conduct an independent count of votes in the referendum. “We are being offered a false choice between the new and old Constitutions. In fact, this is a choice between Lukashenko and Lukashenko.”

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Before the start of the referendum, democratic forces led by Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called on Belarusians to come to the polling station and invalidate the ballot. Earlier, one of the leaders of the protest, Maria Kolesnikova, made an appeal to take part in the voting from prison.

“We don’t influence the numbers, they are already written,” says Lebedko. “But in terms of legitimacy, in my opinion, both international and domestic non-recognition of the results of this referendum will be high.”

Together with Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s headquarters, Anatoly Lebedko took part in the development of the Constitution of the new Belarus - an alternative to the one proposed by the authorities. Lebedko hopes that this Constitution will become the basic law of the future Belarus.

In the meantime, it is pointless to assess what will be written in any legal document in Belarusian realities, Artem Proskalovich believes, because “the regime does not easily comply with the current Constitution either.”

“Everything is aimed at making society gray, quiet and equal to manage,” Proskalovich sums up. “And to record what has been in practice for two years now.”

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