NEWS ANALYSIS: Opposition elects a new president in Belarus (05/30/99)

NEWS ANALYSIS

Opposition elects a new president in Belarus

by David R. Marples

On May 16 electors in the Republic of Belarus completed voting in polls to elect a president, according to the stipulations of the Constitution of 1994 but in opposition to the amended Constitution imposed by President Alyaksander Lukashenka in 1997. The new version would allow Mr. Lukashenka to remain in power until November 2001. The opposition movement, therefore, tried to undermine the authoritarian leader by holding an unofficial election.

On January 10, members of the 13th Parliament (dissolved by President Lukashenka in November 1996) announced the formation of an electoral commission headed by Viktar Hanchar that would supervise elections for a new president on May 16. Bulletins announcing the elections were placed in six Belarusian newspapers during that same month. On January 29-30 a Congress of Democratic Forces held in Miensk sought a united campaign to return Belarus to democracy from the current presidential system of government.

Two candidates emerged for the opposition presidency by the established deadline of March 1: Mikhail Chyhir, a former prime minister under Mr. Lukashenka; and Zyanon Paznyak, the chairman of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front, now a refugee from his native land who was granted asylum in the United States in 1996, but has resided mainly in Poland. Both candidates collected the necessary 100,000 signatures to qualify them for the campaign.

The Lukashenka government reacted initially with silence to this initiative by the unofficial Parliament. However, after the appearance of the bulletins, it threatened the six newspapers with closure if they continued to run information about the elections and imposed a total news blackout of this event.

The government also began to harass the activists participating in the election, including candidates and members of electoral commissions. On March 1, Mr. Hanchar was arrested in a Miensk cafe and sentenced to 10 days in prison. On March 30, Mr. Chyhir was jailed for three months on charges of embezzlement dating back to 1994, thus ensuring that he would not be able to take part in his own presidential campaign.

Ominously, Gen. Yuri Zakharenko, the former minister of internal affairs who turned against the president and had been working assiduously on the Chyhir campaign, disappeared on May 7. His whereabouts remain unknown.

On May 4, the Presidium of the 13th Parliament made a decision that ultimately split the opposition when it resolved that, in order to provide voters with the opportunity to cast their votes freely, it would be permissible to cast ballots at their homes. Local electoral commissions thus began to canvas apartment buildings from May 6 onward, despite a serious backlash and arrests in certain areas. In such cases ballot boxes were brought door to door for voters.

Mr. Paznyak requested an international guarantee of his safety in order to be able to return to Belarus to take part in the elections. No such guarantee was forthcoming, and thus his entire campaign was conducted from Poland. On May 13 he issued a statement condemning the new voting procedure as a violation of the law that had turned the elections into a "criminal adventure" and withdrew his candidacy.

By noon on May 16, however, the election organizers announced that 51.2 percent of the electorate or 3.2 million people, had cast their votes, thus approaching the figure of 3.5 million that Mr. Hanchar has declared would render the elections valid. Mr. Paznyak's name appeared on ballot papers.

Many observers regard these figures as dubious. According to eyewitness reports of May 16, many electors did not know where to go to cast their votes. The Southwest District of Miensk was probably a typical example. There, the polling station was an abandoned and wheel-less bus, and only a trickle of people found it and cast their vote. The likelihood is that Mr. Chyhir will emerge as the winner, but the election has divided rather than united the opposition. In addition, it should be noted that the campaign failed manifestly to attract widespread recognition from outside the country.

Belarus has had two Parliaments for the past 30 months. It will now have two presidents, but, once again, all authority remains in the hands of Mr. Lukashenka.

In the future, much will depend on whether the opposing parties can bury their differences and propose a platform that combines a pro-democratic approach with one more open to private enterprise and business within Belarus. The government's outspoken anti-Western and anti-NATO attitude has created an authentic loophole. At present, however, the will of the various groups to cooperate appears to be weak, despite a fragile economic climate and signs that President Lukashenka's popularity is slowly beginning to dissipate.

Dr. David R. Marples is a professor of history at the University of Alberta.

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