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CIAO DATE: 12/03
Foreign Policy
Belarus: Freedom to Submit
Jan Maksymiuk *
"Like prisoners, we strongly object to our transfer from one cell to another, identical one, particularly since the break between the interrogations proved so brief."
Thus did the late Belarussian writer Vasil Bykau compare his nation’s experience under Soviet rule to its ongoing trauma under the autocratic regime of President Aleksandr Lukashenko. Since Lukashenko assumed power in 1994, Belarus has dropped out of the wider political and economic transformations underway in post-communist Eastern Europe. Without Lukashenko, Belarus will face almost the same problems and questions as it did during its brief post-Soviet and pre-Lukashenko period from 1991 to 1994. How to build democracy? How to breathe life into a listless economy? And perhaps most important, how to redefine the nation’s relationship with Russia?
On the Day After Lukashenko, few answers will be forthcoming from Belarus’s traditional political class. Although independent polls routinely register Lukashenko’s diminishing popularity, the absence of a sufficiently charismatic opposition figure has made the president seem invulnerable. According to a March/April 2003 poll, Lukashenko could only count on 26 percent of the popular vote in a free presidential election-a low point since he was reconfirmed as president in 2001 with 80 percent of the vote in a contest that international observers described as neither free nor fair. Even so, public support for any prospective rivals has been virtually nonexistent in most polls over the past few years.
Fortunately, a small but intellectually potent opposition has emerged outside the government, grouped in several political parties (based largely in the capital, Minsk) and in hundreds of nongovernmental organizations spread throughout the country. After Lukashenko leaves office, this opposition could help replace the personnel in state institutions and guide the country’s political transformation. Many of today’s opposition activists already have firsthand government experience; they had served in the executive branch or legislature before Lukashenko became president and drove them out. And though not all opposition groups in Belarus favor Western-style democracy and market economics-the Communist Party of Belarus still aims to build "real socialism"-the most influential parties, including the Belarussian Popular Front and the United Civic Party, unambiguously opt for economic liberalism and integration with Europe. They are also united in their fear that Lukashenko’s drive toward a union with Russia will destroy Belarussian independence.
Marginalized by the ruling regime, Belarussian opposition activists successfully turned to the West for moral and financial support. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe helped the fragmented opposition unite behind a single challenger to Lukashenko in the 2001 presidential elections. Meanwhile, Washington has reportedly channeled $20 million annually into Belarus over the last few years to support pro-democracy activism, and another $40 million is forthcoming in 2004 and 2005 under the Belarus Democracy Act, approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in July 2003. The Belarussian opposition would likely face few problems obtaining more Western aid aimed at guiding Belarus toward democracy and open markets.
In a post-Lukashenko world, however, the economic impact of Belarus’s eastern neighbor, Russia, would likely trump the importance of Western aid. Indeed, major state-controlled properties in Belarus could become easy spoils for Russian financial tycoons. Already, Russia’s influence over the Belarussian economy is enormous-Russia is a key supplier of energy resources and raw materials for Belarussian industries and it absorbs more than half of Belarus’s exports. The private sector in Belarus-small trade and service industries along with minor food production and forestry enterprises-simply does not possess enough capital to compete with Russia’s moguls. (Belarus’s most significant industry may be the illegal global trade in weaponry and contraband, reputedly involving a narrow circle of Lukashenko’s confidants.) Any unrestrained privatization in Belarus will likely produce Russian-or Ukrainian-style frontier capitalism, with a handful of foreign oligarchs gaining control of basic economic sectors. Given that the average family in Belarus earns less than $170 per month, such a privatization scenario risks social upheaval.
Beyond the economic arena, Moscow may hold the key to Belarus’s political future as well. Many Belarussians believe that Lukashenko’s dismissal is only possible with the Kremlin’s unambiguous consent. This view seemed credible when Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first of very few heads of state to congratulate Lukashenko on his "elegant" victory (as Lukashenko put it) in the flawed 2001 presidential election. Lukashenko is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term in 2006 but has already proposed a referendum to lift this restriction. Another elegant victory is possible, despite the best efforts of Western donors.
Ultimately though, Russia may help provoke a Day After in Belarus, particularly if Lukashenko remains reluctant to open the country to privatization by Russian businesses. Allegedly, the Kremlin blessed Lukashenko’s 2001 reelection in exchange for a pledge by Lukashenko to sell to the Russians control of the pipeline pumping Russian natural gas across Belarus to European markets. But it seems the Belarussian president has now changed his mind. He has continuously postponed a planned currency merger with Russia, thus raising serious doubts about his commitment to a "union state" with Russia, a goal Lukashenko has ostensibly pursued for the past nine years. Putin, however, is now adamant that Lukashenko allow Russian businesses to take their share of the Belarussian economy before the Kremlin makes any further concessions or shows of support.
Clear opposition from the Kremlin to Lukashenko’s permanence in power could compel the disheartened Belarussian opposition and electorate to mobilize against Lukashenko. What remains unclear, however, is the price the opposition would have to pay. Belarus’s future political freedom may only come at the cost of even greater economic dependence on Russia. Both Lukashenko and the opposition need Russia to reach their competing political objectives; the irony is that for Russia, a democratic Belarus and an autocratic one look like a similarly good deal.
Notes
Note *:Jan Maksymiuk is a political analyst with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, based in Prague. Back