The Winter of Our Discontent

In the recent months, I have become pretty much interested in the elections from Belarus. In the last couple of days, I watched furiously how the recently born opposition pays the price for its own naivety and how, from the margins, people encourage an already dead action to continue and praise reckless actions, deeming them as brave. "Go, Belarus!" (meaning go on with the protests) and "Go away, Lukashenka" were slogans used by a handful of protesters and by other few enthusiasts. Sadly, Belarus is going in the same direction while Lukashenka is not going anywhere. 

In the last year, the relations with Russia went from bad to worse for comrade Lukashenka and the internal prices for oil offered to Belarus by Russia time ago were increased. For a country heavily dependent on the Russian resources of oil, Belarus cannot really support its current economy; the regime is based on a mutually beneficial contract signed with the voters - we do not restructure/privatize the economy, helping you, the voters, preserve a stable job and a stable income. From your side, we expect little - keep your vote and don't protest. Of course, this is hardly achievable with a young urban population which keeps an eye on the Western democracies and cares about 'vague' notions such as democracy, human right, freedom of speech and so on. However, fortunately for Lukashenka, this type of population is rather a minority in Belarus, a country with more than two thirds of the economy still under state control (and hence employing most of the active population).

Getting to the bottom of the sack and probably lacking the charm to be liked by Putin (who, unlike his predecessor, has no particular weakness for Lukashenka), the president of Belarus decided to try his luck with Europe. The gullible attitude of the European leaders is hard to be understood (and it should make the object of a different debate), but what is clear is that they jumped to support Lukashenka and hastily declared him as the last bastion holding Russia back and openly stated their support for the wolf wearing a sheep's skin. Well, in Sikorski's words it sounded a bit better - helping Belarus come back to Europe instead of applying sanctions for its dictatorial regime and pushing the country back to Russia's arms.

It was almost a summer of love between Belarus and the EU. While talking to Chavez about the oil discounts for Belarus, Lukashenka was also negotiating with the EU leaders about how to allocate extra funds for the nascent democracy of the last bastion against Russia. Publicly calling the Russian president and prime minister 'crooks' and 'thieves', the president decided to hold free and fair elections at the end of the year... and since Milinkevich has already worn out his popularity and a new set of presidential elections with Lukashenka and Milinkevich wouldn't have convinced anyone, the former decided to open the market for opposition.

In a country with virtually no practice of democracy, the opposition candidates are doomed to dilettantism; under conditions of limited freedom, their influence could not overgrow the already set position and, in the end of the day, Lukashenka still has the ideological and intelligence apparatuses at his disposal, if anything happens.  Hence, he decided to be generous and imitate democracy in a relatively convincing manner (at least convincing for the West, which promised the suddenly democratic leader to grant a EUR4bil aid if the elections are fair, as they promised to be at first glance anyway), allowing 9 other candidates to become the opposition for the presidential elections.

This is the key word - opposition. Carried away by the wave of democratic spring, the 9 candidates somehow forgot they are supposed to be just the opposition and not a real runner-up and they started to dream of replacing Lukashenka. Beginners in the politics, they still attracted an important number of voters and decided to actually put up a fight with the regime. Nekliaev suggested not to participate in the voting, Sannikov insisted that everything is a masquerade, the other candidates accused that the elections will be rigged and called the supporters on the street in the election evening. What happened from here on, is history still being written. To understand it, we need to take a closer look at Russia.

2010 began with Russia cutting the oil flow into the Belarus pipes, following a dispute over the prices/custom duties. A couple of days later, the oil supplies were resumed but the prices for Belarus grew. In May, Putin was announcing that the negotiations for signing the custom union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan could not be finalized. However, in July, the treaty was signed but not yet ratified and the instruments to make it applicable not yet created; in December 2010, a few days before the elections, peace settled in the Russia – Belarus relations, all the documents for the Common Economic Space were created and a new oil treaty was signed, setting not the happiest but still good conditions for Belarus and providing Lukashenka enough funding for the future not to depend so much on the EU/IMF negotiations and money.

The election days came pretty soon and Lukashenka decided to shed the sheep skin off and to be himself one more time. In the evening meeting, the app. 10 thousand participant were led straight into the KGB trap and staged a so-called ‘hooliganism momentum’ which translated into a fast and merciless intervention of the riot police and into more than 600 people arrested. Europe met this with shock and awe and reacted a bit slow and uncertain. Postponing the discussions about what to do with Belarus for January shows that the European countries can still not believe they were fooled. If not more than a couple of months ago Mrs. Grybauskaite, the Lithuanian president, was openly praising the progress in democracy and stating the need for a closer relation between Belarus and the EU countries, on 21^st of December Mrs. Degutiene, the Head of the Lithuanian Parliament declared shortly: “Lithuania and Europe were too naïve”

One can only wonder if this is not Russia’s maneuver to make Lukashenka easier to be removed. Losing all the credit in the eyes of the Western states, which so eagerly welcomed his return to democracy, Lukashenka cannot turn other direction but East. Another game like the one that he recently played will not find a supporting audience in the West and Putin can easily make a move to remove the thorn from his Western rib. Another argument for the fact that what has recently happened is on Russia’s like is Medvedev public statement that the election from Belarus are the internal affairs of the country, while the CIS observers announced the voting process was done in accordance with the laws of the country.

The arrogance with which Lukashenka met the complaints of OSCE observers and the summons of the Western governments to release the hostages makes this hypothesis a not-so-incredible one. Moreover, it is not hard to imagine that the 17 political detainees threatened to be convicted under the Criminal Code of Belarus (carrying sentences from 3 to 15 yrs in prison) are used as a negotiation tool with the EU. Such a hypothesis is supported by the hesitations in the EU statements – if one day some voices condemn the violence used to end the protests, the next day the EU Commissioner for Expansion argues that the EU needs to continue the negotiations with the Belarus authorities, for the general development of the affairs.

Making a long story short, one might say that cards have been played well by Lukashenka, but the game is not over yet. However, what to expect now? It can be said that the unfolding of the events depends very much on the position of the players. Lukashenka’s determined and very aggressive action against the political opponents still has an irrational element. All these could have been done without the final statement, namely the arrest of the other candidates and the threat to long term detention for any political opponent.

From a counterfactual angle of analysis, however, Lukashenka’s actions make sense. On long term, his regime would have weaken if allowing an increased participation of other political forces and the EU funding is, unlike the rents extracted from the crude oil cheaply bought from Russia, conditional. Taking this direction would have led, eventually, to the change of the regime and Lukashenka does not want this. If there were any doubts about the character of his regime, now they should all disappear. His most recent choice, to defy the US/EU and to stress a rapprochement with Russia, is designed to preserve his position and his regime on at least medium term, regardless of the ways chosen to do this.

A few evenings before the elections I was talking about Lukashenka’s choices with a friend. We all knew the elections would be won by him (there was no doubt about this), but we felt that there are more ways to do this. Rationally, he could have simply allow the counter candidates to protest, disperse the action without the use of violence and present Europe with ‘free and fair elections’ in form, to which everybody would have agreed despite knowing that the voting was rigged. From the same perspective, he could have maintained the friendly relations with the EU and use Lithuania as a transshipping point for the crude oil coming from Venezuela, as well as benefit of the US aid to raise a nuclear power station, as it has been previously announced.

However, this would have been not only a reason of continued tension with Russia, but also detrimental on long term for his regime. The political opposition would have grown and eventually become strong enough to put pressure on the regime and, in the end, to replace the ‘batka’. Moreover, Lukashenka seems to be a true Slavic political figure and it is hard to believe he can accept criticism without holding grudge against his critics. Therefore, he decided to ‘make an example’ of those who opposed him; the KGB used its old ‘tried and true’ tactics and its agents from the crowd led the people straight into the Government building. Nekliaev, probably pretty much realizing that there will be provocations in the crowd, was beaten and prevented to participate to the meeting. Sannikov made some bold statements and announced the fall of the regime, probably following some ‘well-intended’ advices or information and the KGB agents started to break the windows.

Meant to look to the eyes of the Western state as a simple action designed to maintain the order, the intervention of the riot police and the reprisals following the evening of December 19^th were still too transparent to be interpreted as desired. However, nothing happens…

And what can happen? Lukashenka has as of now 19 persons kept in the KGB arrest, perfect tools for ‘strong-handed’ negotiations with the EU. Most probably, the scenario will unfold as following – after a couple of weeks of threats and continuous hunt (the KGB troops are still looking for those who escaped arrest in the evening of 19 and are hiding in various locations), Lukashenka will mercifully allow the detainees to be sentenced for a few months – one year (let’s not forget Kozulin), during which time he will tighten the grip. According to his plans, they should stop being a threat and his kindness to shorten their sentences will be appreciated by the West.

However, he forgets a couple of important things and he doesn’t seem to realize that his time is slowly but surely ending. The anger of the people from Belarus will last longer than the memory of some Western Foreign Offices. In a world of increasing interdependencies, he cannot last forever, against everyone. His credibility is dropping and he has too few friends – it is true that they are called Chavez (oil) or Ahmedinajad (perfect blackmail tool against the Americans), but they cannot help him if his own people get angry. And eventually, they will.