Belarusian Elections Turning into Thing in Itself

2006-03-29

By Valery Karbalevich

In fact, the authorities themselves had encouraged all the fuss. The largest part of the Belarusian population learned about "the threat of a revolution" from government officials, especially from the head of state. Secret services and state media made public an alleged conspiracy by the opposition to stage acts of terror and poison water supply with the help of dead rats. And that news was broadcast in the context of the opposition's calls to come to the center of Minsk on March 19.

It looked sometimes that officials were almost hysterical when they spoke. One even said that those who would show up on Kastrychnitskaya (Oktyabrskaya) Square could face terrorism charges, which entails long prison terms and even a death sentence.

Being in such circumstances, the authorities were naturally preparing for the presidential election almost as for a special military operation. Alyaksandr Milinkevich's headquarters said that police units from other cities were brought to Minsk.

Any war of course has prisoners of war. About 100 opposition activists, including eight of the 30 proxies of Milinkevich, were arrested within several days before the election. Even the heads of his local campaign teams in some regions were put behind bars. Under laws of war, it looks like internment, that is, the confining people who are not seen by the country's government as reliable in wartime.

This is how Lukashenka gets yet another "elegant" victory. If he has to employ all the capacities of security agencies, can he really say that his rule is strong and popular?

The government's behavior destroys the myth about stability in the country, the one that has been so carefully woven for years. Lukashenka himself does not really believe in the myth, as the beginning of his press conference on March 20 can suggest.

There is not much point in analyzing the voting results. The figures announced by the central election commission have very little in common with the actual situation. The true results remain unknown.

The drama of the past election is that we do not know (and may already never know for sure) how the people actually voted. Independent exit polls were not taken. Polls taken after some time after election distort the picture to a certain degree.

Belarusian elections, as well as Belarusian society in general, are turning into something closed, into a thing in itself. The system of producing the desired electoral data is tuned perfectly. Now it works in an automatic mode and gives out even more than needed. In particular, in this election the number of those voted early turned out to be extremely high (31.3 percent). Opposition members are not included into election commissions. A mechanism of neutralizing observers is simple and easy to operate: they are kept at such a distance that they cannot fulfill their functions.

This time the authorities went even further. Firstly, they actually destroyed Partnyorstvo, an independent network set up to observe elections, accusing its members of hatching conspiracy and preparing a coup. Secondly, the government sent much more of its observers to polling stations. They had to simulate observation and serve as the proof of democracy and election transparency. Finally, independent exit polls were banned. The central electoral official said that police would be used against those who take polls without official permission. Independent pollsters never received that permission.

Thus, the last elements of independent control over election are neutralized. And this, by the way, gives more freedom into the hands of opposition candidates, because they now can make public whatever figures they want.

The presidential election has set several records in comparison with other electoral campaigns: a record number of signatures in support for nominating Lukashenka as a presidential candidate; a record voter turnout (92.6 percent a record high number of votes that Lukashenka got; and a record low number of votes that the main opposition candidate got, against about 15 percent in 2001.

Such a mania for records is logical. Since life in Belarus is getting increasingly better, according to official propaganda, the level of support for the incumbent should grow, like it always happens in a totalitarian state.

Diametrically different reports compiled by the OSCE and the CIS about Belarusian elections are no longer a surprise. Everyone sees what he wants to see. CIS observers say that the presidential election was a sample of democracy but somehow failed to notice the beating of Kazulin and detentions of Milinkevich's people.

On the whole, the most recent election campaign in Belarus is a traditional illustration of elections in an undemocratic state. It is called a managed democracy in political science: there are signs of standard democratic elections, such as several candidates, campaigning, etc., but they are just signs with no respective meaning behind them. In fact, one cannot call them real elections, because voters are deprived of the possibility to make free choices and check the results of their voting.