The campaign of the “fighting women”: the Belarus election of 2020 and its aftermath – a conversation with Veranika Tsapkala

ABSTRACT

On 29 October 2020, the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta sponsored a Zoom webinar organized by David R. Marples and featuring Veranika Tsapkala, one of three female members of the opposition campaign in the Belarusian presidential election of 2020. Their campaign replaced that of three candidates who were denied registration to run. Tsapkala represented the original electoral campaign of her spouse, Valeryi, which combined with that of Viktar Babaryka (represented by Maryia Kalesnikava) in support of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaia. The women’s campaign galvanized the opposition and drew large crowds around the country, in marked contrast to earlier elections. In the transcript of the webinar that follows, Tsapkala explains how the campaign started, its impact on the country, and the repressions that followed the huge protests as the long-time incumbent president, Aliaksandr Lukashenka, tried to cling to power. She responds to questions from Dr. Nelly Bekus of the University of Exeter; Maryna Maskaliova, a Belarusian community leader in Edmonton; and an audience of over 130.

RÉSUMÉ

Le 29 octobre 2020, le Kule Institute for Advanced Study de l’université d’Alberta a parrainé un webinaire Zoom organisé par David R. Marples avec la participation de Veranika Tsapkala, l’une des trois femmes responsables de la campagne d’opposition lors de l’élection présidentielle biélorusse de 2020. Leur campagne commune a remplacé celle de trois candidats qui n’avaient pas été autorisés à se présenter. Tsapkala, qui représentait au départ la campagne électorale de son époux, Valéry, s’est associée à Maryia Kalesnikava (qui représentait Viktar Babaryka) et Svetlana Tikhanovskaïa (qui représentait son mari, Serguei Tikhanovski). La campagne menée par ces femmes a galvanisé l’opposition et attiré des foules immenses dans tout le pays, ce que l’opposition n’était pas parvenue à faire lors des élections précédentes. Dans la transcription du webinaire, Tsapkala relate les débuts de la campagne, son impact sur le pays et les répressions déclenchées à la suite de grandes protestations contre la décision du président de longue date, Aliaksandr Loukachenka, de s’accrochait au pouvoir. Elle répond aux questions de Dre Nelly Bekus, de l’Université d’Exeter, et de Maryna Maskaliova, une leader de la communauté biélorusse d’Edmonton, ainsi que d’un auditoire de plus de 130 personnes.

KEYWORDS:

• Belarus
• Veranika Tsapkala
• Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaia
• Maryia Kalesnikava

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A recording of the webinar, complete with the images here mentioned, can be found at https://vimeo.com/474873378.

2. This was a practice carried out in the 2010 campaign. After the arrest of the opposition candidate Andrei Sannikau and his wife, Iryna Khalip, following the protests at the end of the campaign, the authorities threatened to take their child into custody on the grounds that there was no one at home to care for him. His grandmother took over this duty, however, until Khalip was released.

3. The 3% derived from an online opinion poll conducted by opposition sources. It is not accurate, since traditionally Lukashenka has not relied on the Internet for his support. Without doubt, however, his support had dropped from that of previous elections.

4. Mikalai Statkevich (b. 1956) has been the leader of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (People’s Assembly) since 1995. He has been arrested several times, most recently in May 2021, and remains incarcerated at the time of writing. Paval Seviarynets (b. 1976) is one of the leaders of the Belarusian Christian Democratic Party. He was arrested in June 2020 and has been declared a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

5. According to the website of the Coordination Council, the Fem Group “works on expanding women’s presence in the Core and Expanded Coordination Council, gaining influence in the decision-making process within the Council and continuing its activities after the Council completes its mission as a transition body.” See https://rada.vision/en/working-groups.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Veranika Tsapkala

Veranika Tsapkala holds a degree in international relations from the Faculty of International Relations at the Belarusian State University. From 2004 to 2006 she studied at the Higher School of Management and Business at the Belarusian State Economic University. Prior to the 2020 election, she worked in the IT sector in Minsk.

Nelly Bekus

Nelly Bekus received her doctorate in 2007 from the Graduate School for Social Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Between 2008 and 2012, she was an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw. In 2012–13, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Currently she is an associate research fellow in the Department of History at the University of Exeter. She is the author of Struggle over Identity: The Official and the Alternative “Belarusianness” (Central European University Press, 2010).

Maryna Maskaliova

Maryna Maskaliova is a native of Mahiliou, Belarus. She graduated from the Belarusian State University with a degree in physics and engineering in 1989. She emigrated to Canada in 2005 and continued further studies in materials engineering technology at the North Alberta Institute of Technology in 2009. She works currently as a senior customer care representative for ATCO in Edmonton, and she is a leader of the city’s Belarusian community.

David R. Marples

David R. Marples is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Alberta. A specialist on Belarus and Ukraine, he has authored 20 books on topics such as Stalinism, Chernobyl, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century history and politics. Among his contributions on Belarus are “Our Glorious Past”: Lukashenka’s Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (Central European University Press, 2014) and Understanding Ukraine and Belarus (E-International Relations, 2020).