section_path: Presidency/First term (1994–2001)
section_name: First term (1994–2001)
paragraph_text: First term (1994–2001)
  
  A new Belarusian constitution enacted in early 1994 paved the way for the first democratic presidential election on 23 June and 10 July. Six candidates stood in the first round, including Lukashenko, who campaigned as an independent on a populist platform. In an interview with The New York Times, he declared: "I am neither with the leftists nor the rightists. But with the people against those who rob and deceive them." Stanislav Shushkevich and Vyacheslav Kebich also ran, with the latter regarded as the clear favorite. Lukashenko won 45.1% of the vote while Kebich received 17.4%, Zianon Pazniak received 12.9% and Shushkevich, along with two other candidates, received less than 10% of votes.
  
  Lukashenko won the second round of the election on 10 July with 80.1% of the vote. The presidential inauguration was held in the halls of the Government House, on 20 July 1994, exactly ten days after the election, during a special meeting of the parliament, the Supreme Council. Shortly after his inauguration, he addressed the State Duma of the Russian Federation in Moscow proposing a new Union of Slavic states, which would culminate in the creation of the Union of Russia and Belarus in 1999.
  
  In February 1995, Lukashenko announced his intention to hold a referendum. For the young democratic republic this raised the controversial issue of the Russification of Belarus. Lukashenko said he would press ahead with the referendum regardless of opposition in the Supreme Council and threatened to suspend its activities if it did not agree to hold the referendum. On 11 April 1995, a vote was held in parliament on calling a referendum on four issues proposed by Lukashenko: 1) granting Russian the status of a state language, 2) changing state symbols, 3) on economic integration with Russia and 4) on giving the president the right to dissolve parliament. The deputies rejected all the issues, except for that which regarded economic integration with Russia. It is unclear whether the president had legal power independently to call referendums, and if so, if they would be binding. Lukashenko stated that the referendum would be held despite the rejection by the deputies.
  
  In protest, 19 out of a total of 238 deputies of the Belarusian Popular Front led by Zianon Pazniak and the Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly led by Oleg Trusov (b. Алег Анатолевіч Трусаў) began a hunger strike in the parliamentary meeting room and stayed there overnight on the night of 11–12 April. At night, under the pretext of a bomb threat, unidentified law enforcement personnel attacked and forcibly expelled the deputies. Lukashenko stated that he personally ordered the evacuation for security purposes. The Supreme Council accepted to hold the referendum on 13 April and in May 1995, Belarusian authorities held a referendum on the four issues. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly found neither the referendum nor the 1995 Belarusian parliamentary election which took place in the same month to have met conditions for free and fair elections.
  
  In the summer of 1996, deputies of the 199-member Belarusian parliament signed a petition to impeach Lukashenko on charges of violating the Constitution. Shortly after that, a referendum was held on 24 November 1996 in which four questions were offered by Lukashenko and three offered by a group of Parliament members. The questions ranged from social issues, including changing the independence day to 3 July (the date of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi forces in 1944) and the abolition of the death penalty, to the national constitution. As a result of the referendum, the constitution that was amended by Lukashenko was accepted and the one amended by the Supreme Council was voided. On 25 November, it was announced that 70.5% of voters, of an 84% turnout, had approved the amended constitution. The US and the EU, however, refused to accept the legitimacy of the referendum.
  
  After the referendum, Lukashenko convened a new parliamentary assembly from those members of the parliament who were loyal to him. After between ten and twelve deputies withdrew their signature from the impeachment petition, only about forty deputies of the old parliament were left and the Supreme Council was dismissed by Lukashenko. Nevertheless, international organizations and many Western countries do not recognize the current parliament given the way it was formed. Lukashenko was elected chairman of the Belarusian Olympic Committee in 1997. At the start of 1998, the Central Bank of Russia suspended trading of the Belarusian ruble, which led to a collapse in the value of the currency. Lukashenko responded by taking control of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus, sacking the entire bank leadership and blaming the west for the free fall of the currency.
  
  Lukashenko blamed foreign governments for conspiring against him and, in April 1998, expelled ambassadors from the Drazdy complex near Minsk and moved them to another building. The Drazdy conflict caused an international outcry and resulted in a travel ban on Lukashenko from both the EU and the US. Although the ambassadors eventually returned after the controversy died down, Lukashenko stepped up his rhetorical attacks against the West. He stated that Western governments were trying to undermine Belarus at all levels, even sports, during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
  
  Upon the outbreak of the Kosovo War in 1999, Lukashenko suggested to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević that Yugoslavia join the Union of Russia and Belarus.