Following a controversial referendum in 1996, the country's last democratically elected parliament was forcibly disbanded. New parliamentary elections were held in 2000, but they were widely condemned in the West as undemocratic. The state media portray the opposition as dangerous anarchists plotting violent unrest or as sexual deviants threatening the moral health of society. Professor Mikhail Pastukhov is a distinguished lawyer who's successfully defended the independent media in Belarus in prosecutions brought by the Belarussian authorities. In fact it's an authoritarian regime, I'd say more with elements of a dictatorship.
All authority is the hands of one man.
And what would probably be most unexpected for Europeans - even judges in the Republic of Belarus are all appointed and removed by the Head of State. But it's in the economy where elements of the Soviet system have most clearly been preserved. Belarus became a highly industrialised manufacturing country during the Soviet period. But a decade after Communism collapsed, more than two thirds of industry remain in the state's hands. Private enterprise is strictly regulated.