Lukashenka Is Fine with Both the Old and the New Constitutions: Does This Mean Votes Will Be Counted Honestly in the Referendum?

With his statements about the referendum, Lukashenka is somewhat confusing the vertical of power, but the voting result will soon be determined together with the final text of the draft Constitution.

On Tuesday, 18 January, Alexander Lukashenka stated at a meeting:
“Then there are two options: either the people accept changes to this Constitution and we have an updated Constitution, or they reject these proposals and we keep the old Constitution….

To be honest, I absolutely do not need this process (constitutional reform)… Let people express their opinion.

No one will pressure them.”

After the meeting, head of the Presidential Administration Igor Sergeenko said that in the coming days the revised draft of the updated Constitution would be submitted to the head of state.

UDF (https://udf.name/) asked experts what the Belarusian leader’s dual position means.
“Lukashenka has still not decided whether the current system should be preserved or not”
Director of the Political Sphere Institute and Doctor of Political Science Andrei Kazakevich noted in a comment to UDF (https://udf.name/) that the country’s leader does not have a clear understanding of whether the old or the new Constitution would be better for him.

Photo: dw.com
“The complexity of the current political situation for the authorities lies in the fact that they have no vision of further development or the political future.

We observed this throughout 2020 and 2021.

The authorities managed to react to immediate challenges, primarily by using repression.

But they have no vision of how to transform the political field.

It seems to me that Lukashenka has still not decided whether he needs to preserve the current system, which gives him a great deal of power, and try to remain president, or nevertheless invent a model of power transition and prepare to move to other positions,” Kazakevich said.

The country’s leadership currently lacks the political will for the second option.
“It seems that a political reform is needed, but on the other hand it opens new risks for the whole system.

Moreover, what happened in Kazakhstan, where the transition of power is ending with Nazarbayev’s removal from the country’s leadership and unfriendly actions toward his relatives, showed that even a well-thought-out transition guarantees nothing,” Kazakevich noted.

His conclusion:
“Probably, against the background of events in Kazakhstan, the Belarusian authorities will be inclined to change nothing at all.”