Belarus' authoritarian president won sweeping new powers in referendum results Monday, while the deflated opposition pinned its hopes on impeachment proceedings.
President Alexander Lukashenko's proposals to change the constitution won 70.5 percent of the vote Sunday, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency, which cited Central Election Commission chief Lydia Yermoshina.Eighty-four percent of Belarus' 7.5 million voters participated.
The opposition boycotted the vote and independent election monitors from the European Parliament said they noted more than 1,000 violations during the balloting.
But the president rejected those charges.
"As far as I know, the referendum was conducted flawlessly," Lukashenko said.
Russia, Belarus' neighbor, had tried to avert the political showdown and have the vote declared non-binding. But its efforts collapsed over the weekend, and Lukashenko and the parliament remained on a collision course in their struggle for dominance in the former Soviet republic.
Lukashenko insisted Monday that the referendum would be binding.
"The people . . . expect concrete steps aimed at carrying out the referendum's results," he told reporters. "I think that any actions taken against the will of the people will be, to put it mildly, misunderstood by them."
Lawmakers began impeachment proceedings last week, and the Constitutional Court will consider whether to take up the issue when it meets Tuesday.
A former Communist state-farm director, Lukashenko has cracked down on dissent and sent riot police against protesters since he was elected in a landslide in July 1994. He has tight control over the press, and last week fired Belarus' top election official, who questioned irregularities in preparations for the referendum.
The referendum - which would extend Lukashenko's term by two years, until 2001, and give him greater control over all branches of government - came after months of political maneuvering between Lukashenko and lawmakers who accuse him of trying to create a dictatorship.
The pugnacious, 42-year-old president, however, immediately disputed such claims.
"I asked parliament to give me at least one official conclusion (of fraud)," Lukashenko said after casting his ballot. "I have not seen a single document."
Taking his victory as a given, Lukashenko promised Sunday not to disperse parliament for at least a month.
Several hundred protesters gathered Sunday on Minsk's snowy Independence Square, waving red-and-white nationalist flags and shouting down government vehicles sent to disperse them. The leading opposition movement, the Popular Front, said three opposition members were arrested.
The political crisis also has drawn new attention to Belarus' murky nuclear status. The mainly agricultural country of 10.4 million people, tucked between Poland and Russia, inherited nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and is supposed to turn them over to Russia.
Lukashenko said Sunday that the remaining warheads would be handed over Tuesday. It is unclear how many there are.
Lukashenko is supported by many Belarusians nostalgic for Soviet-era stability.