Editing Elections in Belarus (section)

===2004 referendum===
{{main|2004 Belarusian referendum}}

The 17 October 2004 Belarus Referendum was declared by President of Belarus [[Alexander Lukashenko]] in his decree #431 on 7 September 2004. The referendum was about the following question:

*Do you permit the first President of the Republic of Belarus A.G. Lukashenko to participate as a candidate for Presidency of the Republic of Belarus during the President elections and do you adopt the Part I of Article 81 of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus in the following wording:
**"President is elected for the term of 5 years directly by the people of the Republic of Belarus by means of the universal, free, equal and direct suffrage under the voting by secret ballot"?

6,307,395 citizens took part in the referendum, or 90.28% of the total electorate of 6,986,163. 79.42% voted for, 9.90% voted against, the rest of the ballots were declared invalid.

The referendum is considered to having been held in violation of Belarusian Electoral Code, as its Paragraph 112 lists "questions connected with election and dismissal of the President of the Republic of Belarus" among questions prohibited from being brought out to the Republican referendum.<ref name="BelarusianElectoralLaw">{{cite web|url=http://www.law.by/work/englportal.nsf/6e1a652fbefce34ac2256d910056d559/913b1cd1d5b908b2c2256dc0004a698c?OpenDocument |title=Electoral Code of the Republic of Belarus |publisher=The National Center of Legal Information of the Republic of Belarus |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101227170750/http://law.by/work/EnglPortal.nsf/6e1a652fbefce34ac2256d910056d559/913b1cd1d5b908b2c2256dc0004a698c?OpenDocument |archive-date=2010-12-27 }}</ref>