• The President ceases to be the “center of governance” and primarily becomes the head of state with representative and arbitration functions. The Government is formed by the Parliament and is accountable to it, not the President. In other words, political responsibility returns to elected deputies, not a single individual.

• Additionally, important presidential decrees are no longer issued unilaterally. For some decrees, countersignature is required: the Prime Minister shares responsibility with their signature or may provide a reasoned refusal. This adds internal oversight and makes decisions more predictable.

• This differs significantly from the 1990s law, where all personnel and executive management powers were concentrated in the President’s hands. The draft deliberately disperses power, meaning less dependence of the state on the will of a single person for every Belarusian.

• An organic law is a law that translates constitutional norms into clear, everyday rules. The Constitution sets the framework, and the organic law gives it concrete content.

• The Draft Constitution specifies that the Sojm adopts three types of laws: constitutional, organic, and ordinary, each with its own threshold for adoption.

• An ordinary law is passed by a simple majority of those participating in the vote, but at least one-third of the constitutional composition of parliament.

• An organic law requires a majority of the full constitutional composition of the Sojm, making it harder to pass but easier to protect from situational changes.

• A constitutional law has the highest barrier: it is approved in the third reading by three-fifths of the constitutional composition, and amendments to the main sections additionally require a referendum.

• Essentially, the deeper a law interferes with the structure of power, the broader the consensus required for its adoption. This ensures the predictability and stability of the rules that affect every Belarusian.

• The key difference is the approach to the Constitution and the law’s role alongside it. The current law on the President largely repeats constitutional norms word for word. As a result, the Constitution appears as a display of declarations, and citizens, officials, and judges refer not to it but to a copy in the form of the law.

• The new draft changes this logic. It does not repeat constitutional articles but precisely refers to them and regulates only what the Constitution does not cover: procedures, details, and application rules. In this way, the Constitution becomes the primary source of law again, while the law is a precise instrument for its implementation.

• In other words, current practice diminishes the status of the Constitution, making its text ineffective. The Draft Law on the President corrects this: it eliminates duplication, reduces contradictions, and adds legal clarity for every Belarusian.

• This is done to close a dangerous “gray zone” between the announcement of election results and the oath. During this period, the country has already elected a President, but formally, they have not yet assumed office. Without clear rules, everything depends on the goodwill of the outgoing authorities.

• The new draft eliminates this vacuum and establishes the status of a President-elect, enshrining basic guarantees — security, a minimal secretariat, access to necessary information — and describes the procedure for taking office. This makes the transfer of power predictable and safe, rather than subject to improvisation.

• The experience of 2020 demonstrated the cost of legislative gaps. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was elected but could not assume office because the incumbent President refused to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. At that moment, the President-elect was not legally protected: there was no guaranteed right to prepare for the oath or assume office, and the procedure for the transfer of power was not established. The draft law eliminates this vulnerability, ensuring that the voters’ will is always transformed into a peaceful and lawful transition of authority.

• The renaming is about meaning, not signage. In the current model, the Presidential Administration of the Republic of Belarus is a state management body with its own power and the ability to form a parallel decision-making center around the President. This creates distortion: the Administration begins to replace normal procedures of other authorities instead of serving the institution.

• The draft changes this paradigm: the Presidential Office becomes a service structure without independent powers, created to support the organizational implementation of the President’s functions. In other words, the Administration transforms from a state authority into a service body for the presidential institution.

• The President’s salary must be regulated to remove uncertainty about the “first office” and set clear parameters for the entire civil service. Currently, the President’s salary is effectively hidden behind the phrase “in accordance with legislation”, meaning it is determined by closed subordinate acts and remains opaque to society.

• The draft law makes the rules clear: the President’s salary is fixed at twelve basic salaries of a civil servant and simultaneously becomes the upper limit — no other public official can earn more than the head of state. This eliminates doubts, reduces the risk of corrupt decisions, and builds trust in how taxes are spent. Additionally, it creates a systemic effect: if the size and calculation principle are written in law, they cannot be changed at the will of a single person, and the budget can anticipate obligations in advance. This is more honest and transparent than the current 1990s model.

You can discuss the draft and propose amendments on several open platforms:

• on the website https://prastora.info

• in the SVAE mobile app (in the “Belarus Constitution Project” community)

• and on the Try Slany platform http://tryslany.com

On each platform, you can leave a comment on a specific article or provide general feedback — anonymously or under your name. All platforms protect personal data. Proposals collected from these resources are regularly gathered and forwarded to the Working Group for consideration.