© KEYSTONE / AP / Sergei Guneyev
More than 65% of Belarusians voted on Sunday for the constitutional amendments proposed by Alexander Lukashenko, the electoral commission announced. This result will strengthen the powers of the Belarusian president, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1994.
“65.16% of voters voted for the amendments to the constitution of the Republic of Belarus”, announced on the night of Sunday to Monday the chairman of the electoral commission, quoted by Russian news agencies. 10.07% voted against. The turnout was 78.63%, according to the same source.
To be adopted, the amendments needed to collect more than 50% of the votes, the referendum being considered valid if more than 50% of voters took part.
Among the proposed changes are lifelong legal immunity for former presidents, and the introduction of a two-term presidential limit for successors to Mr Lukashenko, 67.
Possible nuclear deployment
If the constitution did not envisage a limit before, this new limit would apply from the entry into office of a new president, which would allow Alexander Lukashenko to remain in power until 2035, if he is re-elected in 2025.
In the amended version, the obligation for Belarus to remain a “nuclear-free zone” also disappears. This article would be replaced by an article “excluding military aggression from the territory” of Belarus.
At the end of January, the United States was alarmed that this reform would allow the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus, a country bordering Ukraine and Poland.
The re-election of Alexander Lukashenko to the presidency in August 2020 sparked a historic protest movement in this former Soviet republic, violently repressed by the authorities, who carried out mass arrests, liquidations of media and NGOs.
In Russia, a constitutional reform adopted in 2020 paved the way for President Vladimir Putin to stay in power until 2036.