In the course of the 1996 referendum, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Belarus’ first and still the only President, staged an anti-constitutional coup d’etat, Pavel Znavets, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the 13th convocation, states.
According to the former MP, the fault the Supreme Council and the Constitutional Court that failed to stop Lukashenka is obvious.
In a recent interview with belsat.eu, Mechyslau Hryb, a former chairman of the Supreme Council, said that the Parliament was not able to prevent the president from initiating constitutional changes.
“And we could neither refuse him nor even edit his issues, because it was his right. We were obliged to set the date [of the referendum] – that’s what our mission involved,” Hryb says.
In fact, the 1996 referendum resulted in giving almost unlimited powers to the president of Belarus. And it was not surprising that Alyaksandr Lukashenka disbanded the Supreme Council and established the House of Representatives which is fully controlled by him.
“As a lawyer and a direct participant, I blankly deny that the Supreme Council had no legal grounds to refuse to approve of the issues which Lukashenka proposed to put to a national referendum,” Pavel Znavets stresses in his blog.
According to him, there was not only the opportunity to bar a referendum, but even to bring Lukashenka to justice or compulsory treatment. The president did not have the right to put any issues to a referendum, the former MP says.
“But the head state bluffed and scared the majority of the then deputies, demonstrating his toughness and determination. And he succeeded! MPs and judges of the Constitutional Court were frightened!” Znavets recalls.
“An anti-constitutional coup d’etat was carried out in Belarus under the guise of referendum. All powers in the country were seized by one person who held the highest bureaucratic post in the state apparatus – the presidency. The fault of the Supreme Council, the supreme legislative body, and the Constitutional Court, the highest authority of the judiciary, is obvious,” the ex-deputy believes.
