Was There a Quiet Revolution? Belarus After the 2006 Presidential Election

Abstract

The 2006 presidential election in Belarus mobilized a large cross-section of society to protest against the Lukashenko regime. Although unprecedented, the mass mobilization was short-lived, failing to develop into another kind of coloured revolution in the region. The key to our understanding of the endurance of Lukashenko's regime seems to lie in its internal environment, and notably, in the seemingly contradictory feature of the Belarusian electorate. Not only do they fully identify with the president, thus effectively legitimizing his politics and policies; they also do so knowingly, through their strategic learning of how to survive and even thrive under Lukashenko's regime. This type of learning, however, may not necessarily lead to a critical reflection of the regime's malpractice, and thus is unlikely to challenge its foundations.

Notes

Lukashenko's address to the clergy, ‘There will be peace, tranquillity and stability in Belarus’, available at <http://www.president.gov.by/press16874.html#doc>, accessed 1 May 2008.

This included the ‘Winter 04–Spring 06’ campaign and the ‘Strategy 2006’ document developed by the opposition. For more information on the Strategy and its criticism, see Vladzimir Matskevich, ‘Nekotorye razmyshleniya o strategii i o monitoringe sobytii svyazannykh s nei’ [Some thoughts on the strategy and the monitoring of events related to its realisation] (2006) and respective links at <http://worvik.com/news/2005/07/27/31>, accessed 10 April 2008; also Yury Chavusau, ‘Zdani i nadzei Kastrychnitskai Ploshchy’ [Expectations and hopes of the October Square], Arche, 2006, No.6, available at <http://arche.bymedia.net/2006-6/cavusau606.htm>, accessed 1 May 2008.

Sergey Gaidukevich, as an official protégé, regularly runs for parliamentary and presidential elections. He is particularly encouraged by the authorities to participate in the presidential elections in order to imitate ‘democratic’ competition for power, without a ‘risk’ of being elected.

Central Electoral Commission website, <http://www.rec.gov.by>, accessed 28 March 2008.

This is calculated by dividing the percentage of Lukashenko's votes by the overall turnout at election: 75.76 per cent by 83.85 per cent in 2001, and 83 per cent by 92.9 per cent in 2006 respectively; the result equals 0.9 (nine out of ten) in both cases, as if the elections were devised on the basis of some mathematical formula.

Numerical estimations of the March protest vary: from over 10,000 as reported by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Report, 2006) to 35,000 (Yury Zakharovich, ‘V Belarusi – Revolutsiya?’ [Revolution in Belarus?], Time, 22 March 2006, available at <www.charter97.org/bel/news/2006/03/22/time>, accessed 28 March 2008).

Prior to election every single mobile phone user in Minsk received an explicitly intimidating message warning against participation in meetings of protest and potential repercussions: Zakharovich, ‘V Belarusi – Revolutsiya?’; Viktor Martinovich, ‘Protokoly Chekistskikh Mudretsov’ [Protocols of KGB wizards], BelGazeta, 12 Dec. 2005, available at <http://www.belgazeta.by/20051212.49/010030141>, accessed 10 April 2008.

Yury Drakohrust, ‘The Algebra of Revolution’, 20 Aug. 2007, available at <www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy_power/politics_of_protest/colour_revolutions>, accessed 28 March 2008.

Roger Potocki and Iryna Vidanava, ‘Belarus: Out with the Old’, Transitions Online, 13 Dec. 2007, available at <www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=247&NrSection=2&NrArticle=19224>, accessed 28 March 2008.

OSCE/ODIHR, Republic of Belarus: Presidential Election, 19 March 2006 (Warsaw, OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Report, 2006), p.25.

Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies polls, April 2006, available at <http://www.iiseps.org/poll06.html>, accessed 10 April 2008.

‘Elections in “Europe's last dictatorship’”, Wall Street Journal Europe, 7 Sept. 2001.

Robert Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1998), p.85.

Major events in 2007 and 2008 included Commemoration of Freedom Day (not sanctioned by authorities) and the Chernobyl Path (reportedly 10,000 participants). ‘Flash-mobs’ also became a rare feature of youth-led protest. Political canvassing preceding the 2008 parliamentary elections was relatively languid and fractional.

Vital Silitski, ‘Pamyatats’, shto Dyktatury Ruinuyutstsa' [Remember thet Dictatorships can Crumble], Arche, 2006, Nos.7–8(47–8), available at <http://www.eurozine.com/journals/arche/issue/2006-07-28.html>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

For more details see Lukashenko's interview given to the Financial Times, 19 Sept. 2008, available at <http://www.president.gov.by/press62570.html#doc>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

For a more detailed account of the election see the Central Electoral Commission's website, available at <http://www.rec.gov.by>, accessed 11 Nov. 2008.

Stephen White, ‘Statements’, in Uladzimir Bulhakau (ed.), The Geopolitical Place of Belarus in Europe and the World (Warsaw: Wyzsza Szkola Handlu i Prawa, 2006), pp.97–113 (p.105).

Drakohrust, ‘The Algebra of Revolution’.

For more information visit the home page of Belaya Rus at <http://www.belayarus.by/ru/?guid=10204>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

Potocki and Vidanava ‘Belarus: Out with the Old’, p.2.

For more details see an updated Law on Parties (No. 120/1324) and the Law ‘On Counteraction of Extremism’, both issued in 2007, available at <http://www.pravo.by/webnpa/webnpa.asp>, accessed 11 Nov. 2008.

Potocki and Vidanava ‘Belarus: Out with the Old’, p.5.

IISEPS polls, 2008, available at <http://www.iiseps.org/poll08.html>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

A new and highly controversial law on internet media was approved by the Belarusian parliament and signed into effect by the president in August 2008 despite a number of domestic and international objections. The new law suspends all online media outlets that are not registered in Belarus. It also imposes self-censorship among journalists. Given that all opposition media now operate from abroad and mainly electronically, the law will implicitly limit their penetration to the Belarusian public. Furthermore, the list of violations on the basis of which a media outlet may be closed, and the list of legal enforcement agencies that may issue warnings, were considerably expanded and obfuscated, with the effect of making legal censorship much easier for the authorities.

For more information visit BPSM's own website at <http://www.brsm.by/ru/about>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

For more details see <http://www.charter97.org/en/news/2008/1/21/>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

See Ministry of Justice website for more details, available at <http://minjust.by/ru/site_menu/about/struktura/obschestv/registr>, accessed 11 Nov. 2008.

Freedom of Association and the Legal Status of NGOs in Belarus, report prepared by the Assembly of Pro-Democratic NGOs in Belarus under the auspices of the Foundation for Legal Technologies Development (Minsk, 2007), p.5.

Ibid., p.6.

David Marples, The Lukashenko Phenomenon (Trondheim: Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures and Societies, 2007), p.109.

Vladimir Lenin, ‘May Day Action by the Revolutionary Proletariat’, Social-Democrat, No.31, 15(28) June 1913, reprinted in Lenin: Collected Works, Vol.19 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977), pp.218–27, available at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/15.htm>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

IISEPS polls, 2008, available at <http://www.iiseps.org/poll08.html>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

Vital Silitsky, ‘Preempting Democracy: The Case of Belarus’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.16, No.4 (2005), pp.83–97; Vital Silitsky, ‘Belarus: Anatomy of Preemptive Authoritarianism’, in Bulhakau (ed.), The Geopolitical Place of Belarus, pp.59–91.

Natalia Leshchenko, ‘The National Ideology and the Basis of the Lukashenka Regime in Belarus’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.60, No.8 (2008), pp.1419–33 (p.1422); see also David Marples, ‘Color Revolutions: The Belarus Case’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.351–64, on the importance of historical myths. Lukashenka is the Belarusian variant of the name, Russianized as Lukashenko.

This also includes legislative anti-revolution provisions (law on defamation of state officials; law on counteraction of extremism; law on some changes and amendments to the criminal code increasing responsibility for crime against individuals and state security; changes and amendments related to some issues of financing terrorism; decrees on responsibility of acting on behalf of unregistered organizations, or criminalizing training and other preparations that may lead to the violation of social order, etc.): see Pontis Foundation, ‘Anti-Revolution Legislation in Belarus: State is Good, Non-state is Illegal’, 22 Dec. 2005, available at <http://www.nadaciapontis.sk/tmp/asset_cache/link/0000014889/Legal%20Memo%20on%20Anti%20Revolution%20Legislation%20of%20Belarus.pdf>, accessed 28 March 2008. Furthermore, a detailed action plan was developed by the KGB (security police) and the ministry of the interior to counteract any rebellion during the 2006 election: for more details see Martinovich, ‘Protokoly Chekistskikh Mudretsov’.

Sergey Bajmukhametov, ‘Justification of Belarusian Regime's Cruelty by Russia Looks Simply Monstrous’, Russian Bazaar (2008), available at <www.charter97.org/en/news/2008/4/11/5683>, accessed 10 April 2008.

Lucan Way and Steven Levitsky, ‘The Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion After the Cold War’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.387–410.

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, ‘Linkage versus Leverage: Rethinking the International Dimension of Regime Change’, Comparative Politics, Vol.38, No.4 (2006), pp.379–400.

Way and Levitsky, ‘The Dynamics of Autocratic Coercion’, pp.404–7.

Levitsky and Lucan Way, ‘Linkage versus Leverage’.

For more detail see Elena Korosteleva, ‘The Limits of the EU Governance: Belarus’ Response to the European Neighbourhood Policy', Contemporary Politics, Vol.15, No.2 (2009), pp.229–45.

After the 2008 parliamentary elections, Belarus was conditionally invited to participate in the new associational framework ‘Eastern Partnership’, due to be launched in May 2009 in Brussels. For more detail see Elena Korosteleva, ‘The Limits of the EU Governance’.

Giselle Bosse and Elena Korosteleva, ‘Democratising Belarus: The Limits of EU Governance in Eastern Europe’, Cooperation and Conflict, Vol.44, No.2 (2009), pp.143–65.

To quote Bruce Jackson, founder and president of the project on transitional democracies: ‘I think Belarus is entering a period of complete isolation wherein the primary agents for change will be economic sanctions imposed by the US and Europe in response to serial human rights violations’: interview by Nathalie Vogel, World Security Network editor Eastern Europe, 11 April 2008, available at <http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=15733>, accessed 12 April 2008. After the 2008 parliamentary elections in Belarus, there seems to be some thawing in Belarus–EU relations, the effects of which are still too early to evaluate.

Hans-Georg Wick, ‘Yak vyistsi z Belaruskaga tupika?’ [How to Find a Way Out of the Belarusian Impasse] (reprint), Arche, 2007, No.1(53), available at <http://arche.bymedia.net/2007-01/wieck.htm>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

After a prolonged series of disputes between Belarus and Gazprom, and suspension of gas supplies to Belarus in 2004 and 2006, Belarus–Russia relations finally shifted to a more market-based mode, which included new gas pricing and oil taxation for Belarus; for more information see George Dura, ‘The EU's Limited Response to Belarus's Pseudo “New Foreign Policy”’, CEPS Foreign Policy Brief, No. 151, February 2008, pp.1–10, available at <http://shop.ceps.eu/BookDetail.php?item_id=1598>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

Grigory Ioffe, Understanding Belarus and How Western Foreign Policy Misses the Mark (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008); Grigory Ioffe, ‘Belarus: A State, Not Yet a Nation’, in Bulhakau (ed.), The Geopolitical Place of Belarus, pp.151–67.

Ioffe, ‘Belarus: A State, Not Yet a Nation’, p.151.

Stanislav Bogdankevich quoted in Tat'yana Manenok, ‘The Alternative Is Reform’, Belarusian Market, 2007, No.4(739), 29 Jan. 2007, available at <http://www.br.minsk.by/index.php?article=29431&year=2007>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

Julia Korosteleva, ‘When Time Goes Backwards, or Overviewing Transition Progress in Belarus’, paper presented at the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies annual conference, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, 30 March 2007.

Stephen White, Elena Korosteleva and John Löwenhardt (eds.), Postcommunist Belarus (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

Bajmukhametov, ‘Justification of Belarusian Regime's Cruelty’.

Ioffe, Understanding Belarus.

Trasianka is a blend of Russian and Belarusian, and is widely practised in Belarus, admittedly by the less-educated population, and the president; for more discussion see Ioffe, Understanding Belarus, pp.2–8.

Grigory Ioffe, ‘Unfinished Nation-Building in Belarus and the 2006 Presidential Election’, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Vol.48, No.1 (2007), pp.37–58 (p.49) (emphasis added).

Ibid.

See Lukashenko's speech during his meeting with Putin on 6 October 2008, where he explicitly stated that ‘I firmly confirmed to the West and now say it to you: we will not trade our friendship with Russia under any circumstances. Russians are our people, with whom we will always keep warm brotherly relations capable of providing security for our nations and their dynamic progression’; available at <http://www.president.gov.by/press63030.print.html>, accessed 11 Nov. 2008.

Oleg Manaev, quoted in Ioffe, ‘Belarus: A State, Not Yet a Nation’, p.161. Vyacheslav Kebich was the first prime minister of the Republic of Belarus, 1991–94, and was also one of the defeated candidates in the first presidential elections in Belarus. ‘Slava’ is a friendly way to address Vyacheslav (Kebich), whereas ‘Sashka’ implies a far greater degree of familiarity and crudeness, when addressing Aleksandr (Lukashenko).

Max Weber, quoted in Ian Clark, ‘Legitimacy in a Global Order’, Review of International Studies, Vol.29, special supplement 1 (2003), pp.75–95 (p.79).

All cited data are based on IISEPS opinion polls (2006–8), unless otherwise stated.

Ioffe, ‘Unfinished Nation-Building in Belarus’, p.49.

Focus-groups were commissioned by the author in 2001 (EU-INTAS grant 99/0245) and in 2003 (BA SG-35130), in Minsk, Belarus (by the Centre for Social and Political Research, Belarus State University).

Olga, Minsk. Focus-Group Analysis prepared by the NOVAK Laboratories for Nadacia Pontis Foundation, March–April 2005, available at <http://www.nadaciapontis.sk/tmp/asset_cache/link/0000014931/Slovakia-Belarus%20Task%20Force_Focus%20Groups%20Analysis_Summary.pdf>, accessed 24 Feb. 2009.

Uladzimir Matskevich quoted in Ioffe, ‘Unfinished Nation-Building in Belarus’, p.47.

NOVAK Laboratories 2005, p.2.

Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies News (Vilnius) 2008, No.1(47), p.18.

Ibid., p.19.

Anatoly Rubinov, ‘Pedagogicheskii Zud Reformatorstva’ [The pedagogical urge of reformism], Sovetskaya Belorussiya, 44 (22944), 6 March 2008, available at <http://sb.by/post/64375>, accessed 24 Feb. 2008.

Ioffe, ‘Belarus: A State, Not Yet a Nation’, p.161.

Adam Meszaros and Zsolt Szabo, ‘Designed for Patience: The Significance of Internal Factors in the Ukrainian and Belarusian Transitions’, Transition Studies Review, Vol.14, No.2 (2007), pp.313–30 (p.314).

Ibid., p.317.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena Korosteleva

Elena Korosteleva is Lecturer in European Politics at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University. Her principal publications include: The Quality of Democracy in Post-Communist Europe (edited with D. Hutcheson, 2006); Postcommunist Belarus (edited with Stephen White and John Löwenhardt, 2005), Contemporary Belarus: Between Democracy and Dictatorship (edited with Rosalind Marsh and Colin Lawson, 2003). She is now the principal investigator for the ESRC project ‘Europeanising or Securitising the “Outsiders”? Assessing the EU's Partnership-Building Approach with Eastern Europe’ (RES-061-25-0001).