On Sunday, seven million voters in Belarus -- a country wedged between Russia and a soon-to-be enlarged EU -- will vote for president. Vladimir Goncharik, chairman of the official trade union federation, is challenging incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko, a man who has, since his election in 1994, transformed Belarus from an emerging democracy into an authoritarian state resembling the old Soviet Union.
Everything seems to point to a Soviet-style victory for President Lukashenko. State-run television, radio and newspapers campaign for this supposed "favorite son of the land," who is in reality a former collective farm boss and KGB-border police officer.
An emotional speaker, President Lukashenka is not unpopular, for he touches the soul of the generation that mourns the Soviet Union's passing: World War II veterans, retired people, and collective farm workers. But he and his advisors -- in particular Vladimir Zametalin, deputy head of the presidential administration and Victor Sheiman, the Procurator General with special authority during the election -- claim that they will not allow themselves to go down to electoral defeat like Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic. Instead, they have built an apparatus designed to "defend the president" and insure victory.
Despite intimidation, Belarus's fractured opposition has nevertheless overcome personal and political infighting to unite behind a single candidate, Mr Goncharik. An economist by training, Goncharik has attracted not only the support of the trade unionists he leads, but also of an umbrella organization of political parties that cooperate (with the support of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in an advisory council of seven leading opposition parties and in the Consultative Council of Democratic Forces.
Surprising support
Drawing support from both the left and the right, Goncharik has attracted the backing of a wing of the communist party that opposes President Lukashenko as well as of the Belarusian Popular Front, which stands well to the right. Leaders such as Semyon Domash, former Governor of Grodno province, Pawel Koslovsky, former Minister of Defense (1992-1994), Mikhail Chigir, former Prime Minister under Lukashenko (1994-1996) also support Goncharik's alliance, lending it weight and prestige.
Why has the opposition united in this way? Two words best sum up the reasons for this: decline and dictatorship. Minsk -- a Soviet era industrial jewel -- and the other industrial centers of Belarus declined rapidly after the Soviet Union dissolved, which incited efforts to foster closer economic and political co-operation with Russia. But instead of following Russia's reform path, Lukashenko worsened matters by reimposing central planning in industry and agriculture. In 1996/1997 he dissolved the democratically elected Supreme Soviet and appointed a so-called "parliament" lacking both democratic legitimacy and real power.
Worse followed. Key opposition figures such as former Minister of the Interior Yuri Zakharenko and Victor Gonchar began to disappear and are feared dead. Indeed, leaked governmental information implicates several high-ranking representatives of the Lukashenko regime in these disappearances. A leading journalist, among others, has vanished.
President Lukashenko has not been held to account because he has concentrated all power -- executive, legislative, and judicial -- in his hands. In this, he is exaggerating a tendency predominant in all the Soviet Union's successor states, where strong presidential systems are the order of the day. Such systems co-opt representatives of various social and political groupings and promote potential successors from within the presidential circle. These practices help prevent opposition coalitions from coalescing.
Grip slipping
President Lukashenko. however, has failed to co-opt all the key figures within the opposition and uncommitted sectors of civil society. Indeed, important members of the presidential nomenklatura have turned dissident and joined Goncharik's coalition.
Of even more importance is Russia's attitude, for it has the power to influence the election if it so chooses. For a long period of time, President Putin's Kremlin continued the close cooperation with Lukashenko pursued by President Yeltsin. Recently, relations have cooled, even to the extent of President Putin extracting a public apology from President Lukashenko after the Belarussian leader insulted Russia's prime minister.
But many within Moscow's political elite still consider Belarus an integral part of Russia, which it was -- with only short interruptions -- since 1795. Subsidies from Moscow for gas and oil and privileged access of Belarusian products to Russia's market are indispensable to Belarus's faltering economy. In the past, Russia winked at suppression of the opposition. Now, as President Putin focuses on rebuilding Russia's economy, mixed feelings are appearing in Moscow about the antics of their erstwhile ally in Minsk.
Russia, for example, is showing real interest in seeing that effective international monitoring of the September election takes place. Russian specialists participate in the OSCE ODIHR (Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) international observation mission of which the Belarus government is so much afraid. Moreover, because state-controlled Belarus Television, the only one in the country, is unpopular and unreliable, Belarussians are increasingly watching Russian TV channels. The manner in which Russian television reports the election campaign is likely to have a big impact on the vote.
Opinion polls continue to give President Lukashenko a significant lead, one brought about in large degree by various forms of state interference and intimidation. Yet the coalition forces are catching up. No one can safely predict what the result will be. There will be an official result and there will be a "Parallel Vote Count" on the basis of the initial statements of the vote tallies provided by precinct election commissions.
No matter who wins, this election has succeeded in revitalizing a moribund opposition to President Lukashenko. It can now provide a credible alternative to challenge his authoritarian regime. But if real change is to come to Belarus, this alliance must endure and persevere beyond the election. To do this, it deserves the support of both a visibly emerging civil society within Belarus and of the international community.
Ambassador Hans-Georg Wieck is head of the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group in Belarus.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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