Belarus

A

Post-Independence

The collapse of Communism in the USSR in 1991 led to the republic’s independence as Belarus. The new nation played a leading role in the formation of the CIS and hosted the first CIS summit meeting in December 1991. Belarus joined the UN in 1992.

In July 1993 Belarus became a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Also that year, Belarus committed itself to the removal of all nuclear weapons by 1996. In January 1994 the Supreme Soviet dismissed its chairman, Stanislau Shushkevich, ostensibly for his inability to control government corruption, although his position on ties with Russia was also a factor. He was replaced by conservative Mechyslav Hyrb. In March 1994, Belarus adopted a new constitution proclaiming the country to be a non-nuclear and neutral state. In July the country held its first-ever presidential elections, and the populist Alyaksandr Lukashenka won a landslide victory over the incumbent prime minister, Vyacheslav Kebich, signalling widespread support from electors for his campaign against corruption and closer links with Russia. Mikhail Chigir, a pro-reform prime minister, was appointed later in July. Early in 1995 several treaties were signed with Russia that dealt with defence and economic matters and, in May, a customs union was agreed. In February 1995, arms destruction was suspended by Belarus, but was resumed in September, after technical assistance had been offered by the United Kingdom in March. Legislative elections in May and November went to a third round in December before the required quorum of 174 seats was achieved. The actions of President Lukashenka prior to the election, as well as voting irregularities, attracted censure from observers from the European Parliament.

B

Re-Establishing Links with Russia

In January 1996, Syamyon Sharetski was elected Chair of the Supreme Council (prime minister). A union treaty with Russia to form a Community of Sovereign Republics (SSR) was signed in Moscow in April, resulting in widespread protests in Minsk. It was reported in July that, shortly after opposition parties had voiced concerns over totalitarian rule, all demonstrations had been banned, for the duration of the harvest. In August a referendum on the constitution was scheduled for November. After confrontation between the president and the Supreme Council in September and October, and further anti-Lukashenka demonstrations in the capital, the referendum eventually resulted in victory for Lukashenka. Four Constitutional Court judges resigned and in January 1997 and a new government was appointed. The Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly later withdrew Belarus’s observer status and announced a fact-finding mission to consider the situation following the reforms to the constitution. Syargey Ling, who had been the acting prime minister since November, was confirmed in his role by the House of Representatives in February. The proposed treaty of union with Russia continued to unite opposition, and in March a presidential decree restricted public demonstrations, after 5,000 protesters had assembled in Minsk. The treaty, which committed both countries to integration at a later date, was signed by President Lukashenka and Boris Yeltsin in Moscow in April. A Charter of the Union, which amplified the treaty was signed in Moscow in May, and both were ratified in June. The first joint budget of the Union of Russia and Belarus was drafted and approved in December.

The Belorussian rouble suffered a substantial loss in value in February and March 1998, resulting in suspension of its trading on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange in March. The financial crisis had been triggered by demands for payment of arrears in hard currency, from the Russian gas producer Gazprom. In April the IMF recalled its permanent representative to Belarus, transferring responsibility for the country to the IMF office in Lithuania. Only one tranche amounting to some 23 per cent of a US$300 million standby loan had been issued because of differences in the IMF’s recommendations and Belorussian economic policy.

A dispute with diplomats from more than 22 diplomatic missions living in Drazdy, near Minsk, started in June, and resulted in the departure of 11 diplomatic missions during the period of the dispute, which was not resolved until October. President Lukashenka and President Yeltsin signed documents in December 1998, calling for a common budget, a single currency, and joint security and defence policies between Russia and Belarus. In January 1999, opposition parties called for alternative presidential elections to be held in May 1999, in accordance with the 1994 Constitution that had been abolished by the 1996 referendum. The Belorussian rouble continued to decline and by February 1999 had fallen to 220,000 roubles to US$1, from a rate of 46,620 roubles to US$1 in February 1998.

By October, following the sharp suppression of protests over the failure of Lukashenka to call a presidential election at the end of his original term, increasing concerns were voiced over disdain for human rights in Belarus. Protest was also focused upon the tighter confederation with Russia: in December the creation of a 'Union State' with Russia was passed into law by the National Assembly that enacted closer political and economic integration. In January 2000 the Belorussian currency was redenominated, with 1,000 old roubles replaced with one new rouble; this had followed the introduction of 1 million and 5 million rouble notes the previous year. Sergei Ling, the prime minister, was dismissed by Lukashenka in February and replaced with the mayor of Minsk, Uadzimir Yermoshyn. This appointment was approved by the House of Representatives in March.

Further measures toward the country’s union with Russia were discussed at the first meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Union, in April 2000. The first budget of the Union was adopted in May by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union. The budget, to which Belarus contributes 35 per cent and Russia the remaining 65 per cent, was intended to fund about 30 joint projects in areas such as agriculture, transport, technology, military cooperation, construction, and media. Meanwhile, the government continued to put pressure on the opposition in preparation for the parliamentary election.

In October 2000, the government claimed victory in the elections, despite criticisms voiced both by the opposition and by external observers, including representatives of OSCE. In November, Belarus and Russia announced renewed plans for a monetary union, to be phased in between 2005 and 2008. A partial re-run of the 2000 election took place in March 2001 in 13 constituencies where the turnout had failed to reach the minimum 25 per cent; the results did not change the overall outcome of the 2000 vote.

C

Lukashenka’s Second Presidential Term

Lukashenka won a second presidential term in elections held on September 9, 2001. He received over 75 per cent of the vote but electoral monitors declared the election as flawed and an opposition candidate, Uadzimir Honcharyk, laid accusations of vote-rigging. Lukashenka nominated Gennady Novitsky, the deputy prime minister, as the new prime minister to replace Uadzimir Yermoshyn. He also introduced new governmental structures, reducing the number of ministries and establishing several state committees.

Further talks with Russia on the union between the two countries took place in December, when the overall principles of the union’s military doctrine were agreed by both sides. In early 2002, the OSCE continued to express concern over the politicization of independent organizations in the country following, in particular, the closure of the Belorussian Students’ Union in January and the announcement, in October of the previous year, that the president of the Belorussian National Academy of Sciences would be nominated directly by the country’s president and not elected by his peers. In April 2002 the head of the OSCE in Belarus was expelled from the country.

With continuing disquiet over Belarus’s poor human rights record, most of the countries of the EU instituted a travel ban on President Lukashenka and some of his senior ministers. Meanwhile, the much-discussed “union” between Belarus and Russia seemed to be progressing satisfactorily after a summit between Putin and Lukashenka in November 2002. OSCE representatives were readmitted in April 2003, and consequently the travel ban on the president and his ministers was lifted by the United States and the countries of the European Union. In July 2003, Lukashenka sacked Prime Minister Novitsky and two ministers for failing to resolve a wage dispute with agricultural workers; Novitsky’s deputy, Sergei Sidorsky, was subsequently appointed as the country’s premier.

A further referendum held in October 2004 showed general support for the proposal to lift the ban on Lukashenka serving more than two terms as president. International observers claimed that the vote was undemocratic, a description they also applied to October’s parliamentary election results, in which not a single opposition candidate won a seat in the 110-seat assembly.

D

A Third Term for Lukashenka

In March 2006’s presidential election Lukashenka took 83 per cent of the vote while his main challenger, Alyaksandr Milinkevich, won a mere 6 per cent. Western observers claimed electoral fraud on a huge scale. There were opposition demonstrations leading up to the election that escalated once the results of the election were known, with hundreds of demonstrators being imprisoned. Despite the protests both at home and abroad, Lukashenka was sworn in in early April while the EU and US considered imposing sanctions on the president, including a travel ban.