Unsurprisingly, Alexander Lukashenko will be able to modify the Constitution of Belarus in his favor. Sunday “65.16% of voters voted for the amendments” proposed by the country’s president, announced the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Igor Karpenko. According to him, 10.07% voted once morest. The participation rate was 78.63%, the referendum being considered valid if more than 50% of voters took part.
Among the proposed changes: lifelong legal immunity for former presidents and the introduction of a two-term presidential limit for successors to Alexander Lukashenko. If the Constitution did not envisage a limit before, this new limit will apply from the entry into office of a new president, which would allow Lukashenko, 67, to remain in power until 2035 if he is re-elected in 2025.
Above all, the Kremlin, Minsk’s support, will also be able to benefit from the reform. In the amended version, the obligation for Belarus to remain a “nuclear-free zone” disappears. This article can therefore be replaced by another “excluding military aggression from the territory” of Belarus. At the end of January, the United States were alarmed that this reform would not allow the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in this country bordering Ukraine and Poland.
