Posts Tagged Lukashenka

F for Frustration

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on December 21, 2010

It was over pretty quickly with the election tension in Belarus. Now it’s post-election blues.

Nobody expected the Spanish inquisition: it was beyond logic that some 20 thousand would gather in the centre of Minsk after the closure of the polling stations to protest against rigged votes, that more than 600 would be detained or arrested, dozens would be beaten up. The presidential candidates were virtually abducted from the street or from the hospital.

The demonstration was violently dispersed after a group of youngsters attacked the building with the Central Election Commission and the parliament. There are no lists of those detained.

Journalists argue that the attack was a stage-managed government provocation in order trigger detentions. Probably, not. But some candidates were beaten and taken to the KGB detention centre before the attack on the government building.

Some official numbers:  More than 90% turnout, almost 80% supported Lukashenka and 14% was shared by the rest of the candidates.

Some more big numbers: 5 ex-candidates and several prominent opposition activists are still under arrest. They might be penalised for the organisation of mass riots (up to 15 years), but nothing is yet clear.

Meanwhile on Tuesday (21 December) searches and detentions went on.

Why would months of  “democracy” end up so abruptly? The protest potential and the cold wouldn’t keep Belarusians in the city centre too long. The demonstrations on the following evenings gather dozens people, no thousands. The police violence was excessive and rather pre-emptive than anything else.

The advantage of the authorities is their pro-active stand. Oposition leaders didn’t have any plan, they were undecided and disagreed whether to stay in the square or move to the Election Committee. And what to do there.

Even more so, the opposition knew that provocations were prepared but never took means of precaution to protect the action and the people who dared to join it.

President Lukashenka called a rather negative OSCE assessment a huge step forward. He pointed out that “too much of this stupid democracy is over” and he won’t let “tear the counrty into pieces“. He promised to publish within a week information on the operation of opposition parties and NGOs and the backstage data on their financial sources.

Journalists will also be made fully responsible for every word they write, he said. The election-time heyday of free and easy reporting is over.

Lukashenka remarked that it’s not manly for people to complain that they have been beaten up: “You want to be a president? You have to bear it!”

The president-elect now has compelling problems to tackle, such as foreign debt, the export deficit, urgent demand for economic modernisation.

The country needs money. EU ministers coming to Minsk before elections have talked about €3 billion for projects and reforms in future. Russia’s conditions for $4 billion dollars in indirect aid are unclear but the offer seems to have been snapped up by Minsk as both sides are very optimistic about the oil and gas deliveries.

Was one of the conditions sending a clear signal to the opposition via the use of police batons?

Russian Dmitry Medvedev voiced hope that as a result of the elections Belarus will continue to develop its state on the basis of democracy and friendship with its neighbours (!).

The EU seems perplexed and for a reason. It’s yet to be seen if this will influence relations between Brussels and Minsk. But so far the reaction from the neighbouring EU capitals was very moderate.

Me, I am pretty frustrated… Another election, another democratic flop… My hope is  that every exit is an entrance to somewhere else.

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Postmodern Dictatorship of Europe

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on December 17, 2010

You can hardly believe your eyes as you watch the Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka on TV sort-of-dancing to the punk hit that was intended as political satire: “Sanya [a very informal way to address Alyaksandr] will stay with us, he will stay with us and everything will be OK.”

For weeks it’s played several times a day on the radio, appeared on TV and has a video. Now the song is also visually associated with the president and his electoral campaign. Is there such a thing as bad PR?

Belarus on the eve of presidential elections on 19 December is a postmodernist world. On the internet, observers tot up irregularities in the early voting that started on 14 December, for e.g. that officials, students and employees of state-owned companies are made to vote early. On TV, Lukashenka demands democracy and says forced early voting is inadmissible. He jokes that he has become too democratic and his colleagues won’t understand him.

And in real life? People generally are planning not to show up to vote because they believe they already know the outcome of this little game.

A lot of first-evers and big numbers: 10 registered candidates; just one quarter of one percent of members of electoral committees who are opposition-linked; 400 accredited foreign journalists; a European scandal (on cruelty to animals); a car crash with one candidate (no harm done); a lot of peaceful demonstrations (not dispersed); meetings of candidates with voters all around the country (not prevented).

Yes, even first-ever live TV debates, but without the incumbent President. Meanwhile, as the expert counted, coverage of his activities on TV outweighs that of his nine opponents by a ratio of more than 1,000:1.

British actor Jude Law together with opposition leaders have invited Belarusians to a rally after polling stations close on the big day. As usual, the authorities have accused Lukashenka’s rivals of plotting violence and have promised to prevent it. Media reported of dozens of assorted military machines and water cannons (it’s -15C now!) moving into position in Minsk.

The President has stated that Belarus used up its quota of revolutions last century. He expects the cold weather to cool the ardour of protesters even as he promises to protect them.

According to media reports, the Lithuanian president sees the victory of Alyaksandr Lukashenka as a safeguard for the stability of Belarus and against Russian influence. Nobody wants Russia or a “second Russia” as a neighbour, Dalia Grybauskaite was quoted as saying.

Dalia, Sanya will stay with us, don’t worry.

Worried seemed to be Russian Prime Minister Putin. Yesterday (16 December) he counted the costs of Belarusian friendship: Russia annually loses $3 billion in revenues due to duty-free gas deliveries to Belarus; oil duty abolition will bring Belarus $4 billion in extra revenues in 2011. What he ‘forgot’ to mention is the Customs (!) Union (!!) of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan that Moscow is trying to push an unwilling Minsk towards.

Apropos of Russia. WikiLeaks text on Belarus reveals that the US allegedly won’t compromise its principles (regarding criticism of Belarus’ human rights record for e.g.) in the name of better relations with Moscow. The EU is said to be looking into possible support Belarus worth two to three billion dollars.

None of this will be decisive. The important thing is that the people are generally satisfied with their uninformed lives and moderate wages. They are all part of the system created by Lukashenka, a system which still works well enough to make the pain of transition, transformation and liberalisation unnecessary and offers no alternatives.

The last dictatorship of Europe? Belarus? Noooo! We are the best dictatorship in Europe.

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Love Your Choice

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on September 20, 2010

So be it: 19 December 2010. The Presidential election in Belarus won’t bring any surprises anyway.

The election will take place before Belarus and Russia agree on new gas prices, which could rise from the current $185 per thousand cubic metres to $250 and threaten Belarus’ social stability.

The authorities have said already that the vote will fully comply with national laws.

Minsk promises to invite the maximum amount of foreign observers. The OSCE/ODIHR mission will be more interested to see if it complies with international standards. In the past, they have always said Belarus’ elections fail to meet democratic norms. Interestingly, their CIS observer mission colleagues from former Soviet countries have always said the opposite.

The upcoming campaign will be different – this time Minsk cannot rely on silent approbation from Moscow. Russian diplomats in the OSCE and CIS missions might work together to make the two reports more similar. But would Moscow favour a more positive OSCE verdict or a more negative CIS one than usual?

The information war between Minsk and the Kremlin is plain to see. But not what lies behind it. Belarusian experts say Russia has no strategy for the Belarus election and will not try to topple Lukashenka. It’s unlikely that Russia would like to sponsor a revolution of any colour in Belarus. It might want to make the Belarusian leader as nervous as possible ahead of the hydrocarbon price talks, however.

This time Lukashenka won’t be able to beat Belarus most famous pro-EU opposition leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich. That’s because Milinkevich announced that he won’t run.

Milinkevich, Europe’s darling, the united opposition candidate, got 20 percent of the vote in 2006, as far as we know. He says he is not taking part in the new elections because they are not elections. He won’t take part in a play, he says, where the director, the playwright and the actor are all one and the same. In his name you see Europe giving up.

The opposition, recently again labelled the “enemies of the people” by Lukashenka, has no common candidate in 2010. There could be up to a dozen pro-democratic romantics keen to be President and several of them running against Lukashenka, and each other, in the final sprint.

There is nothing to indicate that the incumbent will not be re-elected.

The most interesting part will come after elections anyway.

Choose thy love. And love thy choice.

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Why Is Bakiev in Minsk?

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on April 26, 2010

The ousted Kyrgyz president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, fled his country, disappeared for a while and has now popped up in Belarus. But why Minsk?

The Tulip Revolution Mark 2 in Kyrgyzstan seems to have aroused almost no interest compared to the first one in 2005. Is history too repetitive? Are the main protagonists too well known? I am not sure. After the Orange Revolution in Kiev, each subsequent one was keenly analysed. But they do not get top billing anymore.

Russian media has projected the image of Bakiev as that of a bloody dictator who grabbed power, was elected and even re-elected, but went on to install his family members in top positions, to steal millions from the state budget, investments and foreign loans and who, in the end, ordered troops to shoot at a peaceful crowd in order to save his own bacon. His son Maxim is a very successful businessman who reportedly has ties with the notorious Russian oligarch-in-exile Boris Berezovsky.

Looks like despite its allergy to colour revolutions, Moscow takes sides pretty quickly and has already invited for talks one of the Kyrgyz opposition leaders who toppled Bakiev. In 2005 it was the toppled president Askar Akaev who was invited. And he is still in Russia. Now the sides have flipped.

Bakiev in Minsk looked tired and fearful. He met journalists to say that popular discontent was not so strong, as he had been re-elected just eight months ago. Since 6 April, his family, close associates and security officials have been pressured and intimidated. According to Bakiev, what happened was a well-staged coup d’etat and not a grassroots revolution. He said he left in order to prevent civil war between the south (his home territory) and the north, that he resigned to save the lives of those in his government. He also offered to help in any investigation into the events leading up to his downfall.

Lukashenka has given shelter to Bakiev, depicting him as his Kyrgyz colleague, and has assured him that he, his common-law wife and two children, can stay as long as they need. Bolivar …,um, Belarus can carry double. It will stand by its man no matter what Moscow, Washington or Astana think. That’s presidential decision.

I am not trying to defend anyone’s stand. I am defending the ideas of fairness, equal rights and rule of law. I am surprised not to see any mediators, any international organisations like the OSCE or the UN, any CIS leaders, coming forward to try to resolve the situation and ease tensions in Kyrgyzstan. The guns of the Tulip Revolution Mark 2 have produced no echo.

For many people in Europe, it is probably a piddling detail which name is attached to the title President of Kyrgyzstan. But Central Asia is a crossroads for the interests of the world’s great powers. It is an unstable region and it merits constant attention.

So Bakiev is in Minsk, Akaev is in Moscow. But it’s not about them or Russia, it’s about a different country. Kyrgyzstan still needs help.

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I Am that I Am

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on September 17, 2009

Lukashenka goes for the West. That’s what Russian press understood from his working visit to Vilnius on September’16. First time since 1998 he went to Lithuania and – to EU.

But no, he is not going to take sides between Russia and EU.

While in Vilnius he was talking about the importance of the relations with Brussels and Belarus’ contribution into European security. He said Minsk was not going to make any special moves to impress the West to have the sanctions lifted: if EU wanted to improve relations and have a dialogue, it’d just do this.

At the same time he tried to comfort Moscow telling Lithuanian journalists that Belarusian parliament would look into the recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in October. Underlining Russia is an important partner for Minsk.

Lukashenka repeated the usual things he instructs his ministers with. Interesting enough that the same rhetoric sounds very different outside Belarus.

Back home his quotes are to be written up and analysed, they pave the way for the development of the country. In Vilnius he seemed to be defending his right to be the way he is, to rule the country his way. He went on the defensive simply to be understood.

Love me or leave me, is the message to the EU. You won’t change me but we could try and come to a compromise to normalise relations.

PS

It’s also that Lukashenka was pretty nervous. That’s very understandable: his offices have everything under control in Minsk, when and where everyone goes, they line up journalists and usually decide on the questions.

The change of the situation is clearly seen in his pictures. The limited number of Belarusian photographers who work with the President can take pictures of him only from certain perspectives, afterwards the pictures are edited in Photoshop. In Vilnius any photographer could work almost from any place. And in these pictures Lukashenka looks older, he looks worked out and strained. And by the way, very human.

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Belarus’ 15 Unique Years

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on July 10, 2009

Lukashenka-1994-Belapan

Today it’s the 15th anniversary of Belarusian President Lukashenka in power.

It’s a strange feeling – that’s half of my life. Sometimes I feel as a linguistic invalid. With a new regulation introduced 4 years ago I got used to apply the word president to the one and only position in the country. And feel ill at ease to refer to him as to “the current president”. He is The President here.

But no comments from my part. The quintessence of the years could be followed through Lukashenka’s quotes. I’ve tried to pick out those that don’t lose their meaning without the context. Anyway direct quotations often say more than they read.

- “I am the president of the country and this country will be [=exist] until I am the president.”

- “We falsified the latest election [in March 2006], I’ve already told westerners about this. As many as 93.5 percent voted for President Lukashenka. They say it is not a European figure. We turned it into 86 [percent]. This did take place. And if we now start recounting ballots, I don’t know what we should do with them.”

- “I enjoy playing football and hockey, but most often I play alone.”

- “I want you to wear your own and eat your own [products]. They are probably packed not as good as the foreign things, but today we don’t have enough foreign currency.”

- “I am confident that the Europeans will come crawling to Belarus to ask for co-operation in the fight against drug trafficking and illegal migration.”

- “I think Americans realised that Belarus is the key country in Europe and they need to cooperate with it.”

- “Our “dictatorship” doesn’t hinder anyone’s life or development.”

- “I am pretty tired of the question of the so called political prisoners. There are no political crimes therefore there can be no political prisoners. They are ordinary criminals <…> We released them.”

- “Those <detained during demonstrations> were unconscious and blind drunk, 10-15 days arrests’ were necessary for them to recover themselves.”

- “What kind of opposition is that? They’ve been fighting in the centre of Europe for more than 20 years, I guess, and still can’t put at least one man into the parliament – to be honest, even with the support of the authorities.”

- “Those who drink – you’d better not vote for me, I won’t be a friend of yours.”

- “All these years I’ve been carefully and reverently carrying this clear, crystal vase called Belarus.”

- “The situation in Belarus is unique as I don’t owe anything to anyone.”

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Russian Bread Crumbs

Posted by Maryna Rakhlei in EU on May 29, 2009

It’s very likely that from now on the movement of Belarusian authorities towards Brussels’ requirements will be even more visible. The Belarusian president was furious about yesterdays’ remarks of the Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin who publicly cast doubt on the Belarus’ ability to default on its debt by the end of the year due to the dire state of economy. He warned it was too early to say whether Belarus would receive any further loans from Moscow.

“The future of Belarus can no longer depend on Russia… The days of Minsk bowing down to Moscow are over… Belarus needs to look for its happiness on a different part of the planet.”– announced Lukashenka. And underlined that he was saying this in public consciously.

The escapade came a day after his talks with the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Minsk. Putin who travelled together with Kudrin played a “good cop” and expressed hope that Belarusian-Russian trade kept increasing in the period of the global crisis.

Lukashenka in contrast expressed outrage that Kudrin’s comments had been agreed with Putin and commented that the Russian minister had also fully consolidated with the Belarusian opposition which lived on Western grants and tried to teach the authorities to work. (That’s probably the worst you can say about someone: he is with the opposition!)

The stakes according to Lukashenka are high: “If we don’t stand tall… we are going to be running in a sweat to the right and the left in the hope that someone is going to throw us a piece of bread from the table.”

He mentioned no alternative to Russia. But we have two strong neighbours. And if we don’t bow down to Russia, the movement towards EU could become more visible. The problem is that this visibility is nothing new. So there’s little hope this movement is going to be more effective this time.

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