Editing Belarus (section)

===Independence===
[[File:RIAN archive 848095 Signing the Agreement to eliminate the USSR and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Leaders of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the [[Belavezha Accords]], [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|dissolving the Soviet Union]], 8 December 1991.]]
In March 1990, [[12th Belarusian Supreme Council|elections]] for seats in the [[Supreme Soviet]] of the Byelorussian SSR took place. Though the opposition candidates, mostly associated with the pro-independence [[Belarusian Popular Front]], took only 10% of the seats,<ref name="byind">{{cite web|url=http://countrystudies.us/belarus/39.htm|title=Belarus&nbsp;– Prelude to Independence|access-date=22 December 2007|last=Fedor|first=Helen|year=1995|work=Belarus: A Country Study|publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> Belarus declared itself sovereign on 27 July 1990 by issuing the [[Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic]].<ref>{{cite web |title=History, Belarus |url=https://www.belarus.by/en/about-belarus/history |website=Belarus.by |access-date=6 April 2021 |archive-date=2 April 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402173018/https://www.belarus.by/en/about-belarus/history }}</ref>

[[1991 Belarusian strikes|Wide-scale strikes]] erupted in April 1991. With the support of the [[Communist Party of Byelorussia]], the country's name was changed to the Republic of Belarus on 25 August 1991.<ref>{{Cite CIA World Factbook|country=Belarus|access-date=4 March 2016|year=2016|url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/belarus/}}</ref><ref name="byind"/> [[Stanislav Shushkevich]], the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, met with [[Boris Yeltsin]] of Russia and [[Leonid Kravchuk]] of Ukraine on 8 December 1991 in [[Białowieża Forest]] to formally declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]].<ref name="byind"/>

In January 1992, the [[Belarusian Popular Front]] campaigned for early elections later in the year, two years before they were scheduled. By May of that year, about 383,000 signatures had been collected for a petition to hold the referendum, which was 23,000 more than legally required to be put to a referendum at the time. Despite this, the meeting of the [[Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus]] to ultimately decide the date for the referendum was delayed by six months. However, with no evidence to suggest such, the Supreme Council rejected the petition on the grounds of massive irregularities. Elections for the Supreme Council were set for March 1994. A new law on parliamentary elections failed to pass by 1993. Disputes over the referendum were accredited to the largely conservative [[Party of Belarusian Communists]], which controlled the Supreme Council at the time and was largely opposed to political and economic reform, with allegations that some of the deputies opposed Belarusian independence.<ref>{{cite book |title=Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States 1997 |date=November 1996 |publisher=Europa Publications Limited |isbn=1-85743-025-5 |page=181 |edition=3 }}</ref>