A referendum on a constitutional act of a Russia-Belarus Union State may be held as early as this fall, a Russian official overseeing the project said Thursday. According to RIA Novosti, Pavel Borodin, the state secretary of the Russian-Belarus union, said that he hoped the Union’s Supreme Council would meet in July or August to set the dates for the referendum and for parliamentary elections.
A gloomy foreboding of the Anschluss, a forceful incorporation of Belarus into Russia, scares some analysts, whereas others – like Valer Bulhakau, the editor of intellectual journal ARCHE, are skeptical about the potential loss of Belarusian independence. In a panel discussion hosted by RFE\RL, Bulhakau assured “Among the Western political scientists, there is a consensus that authoritarian regimes are incapable of integrating or cooperating with the other authoritarian regimes. World history has no such examples. 12 years of Lukashenko rule support that this politician sniffs any potential threats which would destabilize the status quo in the country. For him Belarus is a territory of his own power, and essentially he will not share his powers with any other subject.
Even in the “golden” years of Belarus-Russian integration, at the end of the 90’s, the Russian presence in Belarus’ military, border control and customs was marginal, approaching zero, because the president understood that once he unlatched the passage here, the power structure, which had been built in the country, would be shattered.”