The presidential election in Belarus, September 2001

Belarus became an independent state in December 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR, and a presidential state under its constitution of March 1994. At the first election under that constitution, in July 1994, Alexander Lukashenko won a convincing mandate with 80% of the vote in a second-round runoff against the then Prime Minister, Vyacheslav Kebich (see Marples (1999). Once elected, he made a concerted effort to extend the powers of his office. This soon brought him into conflict with the Belarus parliament and Constitutional Court, conflict that he sought to resolve by returning to the people for another mandate in the form of a referendum. Thus, in May 1995, he secured an enlargement of his presidential powers; then, in November 1996, a further and more controversial referendum extended the president’ s term of office and allowed him to replace the parliament with a smaller and wholly subordinate National Assembly. This was effectively a constitutional coup, and paved the way for the establishment of an increasingly authoritarian regime