The romantic period of the young Belarusian democracy, however, rapidly came to an end. In 1994, the institution of presidency was established and the first presidential polls were triumphantly won by Alexander Lukashenko, a former Sovkhoz director. Factors which have also had an adverse impact on the pro-European trend in the young Belarus included the dismissal of democratic changes and the turn of foreign politics towards Moscow. This was the first negative breakthrough.
By force of inertia, in 1995, Lukashenko flew to Brussels to sign the PCA, yet the strategy to reinforce authoritarianism soon set him sharply against the West. The EU refused to recognise the results of the 1996 referendum (which granted the president virtually dictatorial competences and led to the dissolution of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus) and froze ratification of the PCA. Belarus gained the image of the “last dictatorship of Europe”, while representatives of Belarusian authorities were denied the right to cross EU boundaries.
Using mass media, Lukashenko successfully managed to manipulate the collective consciousness, making the society believe that the blame for this confrontation rested with the traitorous imperialists of the West, averse to the independent direction of Belarusian politics.
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