FLASH
Shkruar nga Pavel Slunkin
Belarus, a reality close to Albania...
For the ordinary citizen of a European Union country, the word "election" is associated with very strong political discussions, street rallies and electoral slogans, heated debates on television, observers and finally an honest counting of votes.
In Belarus, elections have always been held according to different rules. In 2016 and 2019, independent Belarusian media predicted with 96 percent accuracy who the next members of parliament would be, long before a vote was taken.
But even in spite of this terrible record, this year's election campaign will go down in history as more formal and oppressive than ever before. In 2011, when he criticized the "unbridled freedom" that he believed existed in the country, Aliaksandr Lukashenka said that Belarus "has had so much of so-called democracy that it has made us vomit."
In an effort to put an end to this unpleasant concern, the Belarusian authorities have eliminated all loopholes in their legislation, which were exploited by democratic politicians during the 2020 presidential elections, and pre-emptively struck all potential challengers.
Despite bans, violations and large-scale arrests, 4 years ago the Belarusian society managed to collect a lot of information about the falsification of the final results and the victory of the opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, including photos of the ballots.
Since then, Belarusian officials have banned voters from taking pictures of ballots, opened polling booths and lifted the turnout threshold. Now, the elections will take place regardless of the number of citizens who are taken to the polling stations with violence and threats.
In 2020, at polling stations in Belarusian embassies abroad, Tsikhanouskaya came in first almost everywhere, from Kazakhstan to the United States, winning between 52-95 percent of the vote, according to official data. Since then, the authorities have banned the holding of elections abroad by law, not even trusting their loyal diplomats to ensure a landslide victory for 'right' candidates.
As might be expected, the Belarusian authorities have refused to invite observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). Formally, Belarusian parties have the right to propose their own candidates.
But last year, the regime ended the process of legally liquidating parties it didn't like. Many of the leaders of these parties are now either in jail or have fled the country. Of the 16 parties that were officially registered in Belarus before the 2020 elections, today only 4 remain, and they compete only in their loyalty to the government and who will praise Lukashenko the most.
Today, there is still the possibility of running through the collection of signatures. But even this legal mechanism is an illusion given the harsh reality. To run for parliament, potential candidates need an initiator group of at least 10 people who must collect at least 1,000 signatures.
And those who joined the initial groups of presidential candidates 4 years ago faced persecution, and many of them are sentenced to long prison terms. For example, members of candidate Tsikhanouskaya's initiative group were sentenced to 5-6 years in prison in 2021. Meanwhile, thousands of people who signed her candidacy or those of other opposition candidates were fired or ended up in prison.
When Belarusians exercise their political or civil rights, they risk having uninvited "friends" with automatic weapons waiting in their homes. The Belarusian secret police, GUBOPIK, whose officers have compared themselves to Hitler's Gestapo, regularly raid the homes and workplaces of people they suspect of disloyalty to the regime.
They have arrested people who were previously election observers, and raided the homes of Belarusian politicians who have left the country.
In late January, the Belarusian KGB raided the homes of 200 relatives of political prisoners who had accepted food bought for them by the Belarusian diaspora, accusing some of them of "using free foreign aid to carry out terrorist activities and acts of terrorism". other extremists".
But political parties are not the only ones outlawed. Human rights organizations, lawyers' associations, even amateur theaters have faced the same fate. A total of 971 organizations have been banned by law or are in the process of liquidation. Fearing unauthorized citizen activity, the government subdues or destroys structures in which public energy could be collected.
At least 169 organizations are currently on the list of "extremist" groups, including independent media. The list of individuals that the authorities consider extremists includes almost 4,000 people, where three quarters of them have been added in the last 3 years for their political activities.
After the February 25 elections, EU countries should not expect major political changes in Belarus. Also, they should not expect any political mobilization of the society, protests or other internal disturbances in the country. After 4 years of brutal repression in the history of independent Belarus, these are simply impossible.
Even the campaign of democratic forces with online parliamentary elections in exile does not promise any large-scale success. But with all its limitations and shortcomings, this campaign looks more like a pair of democratic elections than the ones taking place in Belarus.
Elections to the Coordinating Council will create conditions for democratically elected representatives in opposition structures in the future, providing a formal platform for political discussions among opponents of the Belarusian authoritarian regime. This is a small but important test of democracy, for a nation that has lacked this electoral atmosphere for decades./ Pamphlet adapted from "European Council on Foreign Relations"
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