Insight
Something is stirring in Belarus by Charles Grant 7 July 2020
As Belarus’s presidential election approaches on August 9th, opposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka is growing. The EU needs a strategy for the country. Now that the Belarusian authorities are locking up the president’s opponents, the EU faces a difficult dilemma. On the one hand, it wants to stay true to its principles of promoting democracy and the rule of law. That means putting pressure on the regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, in the hope that it will change its behaviour. Yet on the other hand the EU wants Belarus to retain its sovereignty and independence, which means preventing Russian domination of the country. If the EU applies strong sanctions, and spurns Lukashenka, it could create a space for Russia to move into. Since he won power – in a free-ish election in 1994 – Lukashenka’s regime has been quite stable. Every five years he has triumphed in presidential elections, often locking up rivals. The president appeared fairly popular, having struck an informal social contract with the people: in return for rising prosperity and security, many Belarusians were willing to tolerate authoritarian rule. Lukashenka cannily played off the West and Russia against each other. Belarus belongs to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, pale Russian-led imitations of the EU and NATO, respectively. Yet Lukashenka has periodically flirted with the EU and the US, particularly when resisting Russian pressure for still closer ties to Moscow; then his abuse of human rights would lead to a chill in relations with Western countries, and he would veer back towards Russia. In the past few years this cycle had seemed to repeat itself, as an EU-Belarus rapprochement gathered momentum. Yet in the run-up to the August 9th presidential election, it is becoming clear that Belarus is less stable than it looks. The signs of discontent stretch far beyond the Minsk intelligentsia. Unofficial opinion polls give the president a rating of less than 10 per cent – and his leading opponent, Viktar Babaryka, a former banker, over 50 per cent. Citizens have queued for many kilometres to give their signatures in support of opposition candidates (in order to be registered by the Central Election Commission, a candidate needs 100,000 signatures). There has been talk of a ‘signature revolution’.
CER INSIGHT: Something is stirring in Belarus 7 JULY 2020
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