BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10 October 2005

Alyaksandr vs. Alyaksandr

by Alyaksandr Kudrytski

The Belarusian opposition unites to choose a single leader to challenge Lukashenka.

MINSK, Belarus | In the end, it was undoubtedly the largest indoor gathering of the Belarusian regime's enemies in many years: on 1-2 October more than 800 opponents crowded the Palace of Culture in the gigantic state-owned MAZ industrial plant. An officially sanctioned meeting, let alone in such an imposing setting, had seemed deeply implausible until recently. Initially, the congress' organizers had received 54 refusals from potential hosts right across the country. When it became obvious that nobody would dare to harbor an opposition gathering, the opposition even contemplated heading to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv to hold the congress, at which they were to choose a single candidate to represent the united opposition in presidential elections in 2006.

Ironically, they struck lucky at the 55th attempt thanks to the man they want to unseat: President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Unexpectedly, during one of his TV appearances in September, Lukashenka urged the mayor of Minsk, Valery Paulau, to provide a building for the congress. In the blink of an eye, the congress's organizing committee had a "palace" at its disposal. Moreover, when the delegates arrived on 1 October, they found no police blocking their way. There was anti-opposition graffiti - "Glory to the [Soviet] Union, no to European Union!" and "No to the corrupt opposition!" - but the doormen equipped with James Bond-style wireless headsets were, like them, opposition supporters.

A UNITED FRONT :

Quite why Lukashenka was willing to give the opposition such a prominent stage is unclear. Perhaps he wanted to claim democratic credentials for his regime. Or perhaps he hoped that the opposition would very publicly fail in its stated goal - to find a single candidate - and would instead display disunity.

Certainly, the members of the congress make up a varied group. Belarus' many political parties sent delegates, as too did non-governmental organizations. Officially, the former deputies of the first Belarusian parliament (including Lukashenka) and the deputies of a parliament dissolved by Lukashenka in 1997 were also invited, as well as the opposition activists who ran for parliament in 2003 but were not given a chance to win a seat because of massive election fraud. Among the delegates were also editors-in-chief of independent publications as well as a number of VIPs - stand-alone opposition politicians such as General Valery Fralou or Uladzimer Kolas, head of the Belarusian Lyceum, a deeply symbolic institution for Belarusian nationalists closed down by Lukashenka.

But the most important men at the congress - Lukashenka's four potential challengers - all stressed unity when they put their cases, standing below a big banner with a symbol of the congress: a red tree with its crown in the shape of a map of Belarus under a white sky, which (not coincidentally) are also the colors of the white-red-white national flag banned by Lukashenka.

Siarhey Kalyakin, leader of the Communist Party, said not a word about himself, concentrating instead on the importance of uniting around a single candidate, whoever he might be.

Stanislau Shushkevich, former speaker of the parliament and one of the country's social-democrat leaders, won a long round of applause for withdrawing from the race.

Anatol Lyabedzka, leader of the United Civic Party, swore an oath on three books: the Bible, the Belarusian constitution of 1994, and a volume by Belarus' most famous writer, the late Vasil Bykau. Belarus could, he suggested, be "as prosperous as Norway and as neutral as Switzerland."

By contrast, war was the keynote of the fourth candidate's speech. Alyaksandr Milinkevich, ex-deputy mayor of the western Belarusian city of Grodno and a civil-society leader, said that next year's presidential elections would be "a war, a serious war."

The war, of course, was not to be within the opposition but to topple Lukashenka, and all four signed an agreement pledging to respect and support the choice of the congress, no matter who won most votes.

: BUT A SQUEAKY COALITION

But, for all the united front, the congress was anything but a meeting of like-minded politicians. Fralou insisted that the opposition should become more tolerant towards Russia. "I always associate the word 'nationalist' with the word 'fascist,' " he said, prompting boos from a fair majority of the delegates, used as they are to hearing the same equation made by Lukashenka.

Zmitsier Dashkevich, leader of the youth organization Malady Front, declared that his organization would support any candidate : except a Communist. The Communist activist Valer Berazijenka retorted by stating that "screaming and waving the white-red-white flag will not deliver more votes to any candidate." The delegates reacted by chanting "Gan'ba!" ("Shame!"). To smooth things over, the Communists' candidate Kalyakin (who happened to be wearing a red tie on a white shirt) intervened. "We should concentrate our efforts on bringing Belarus back to the path of democracy," he declared. "We are not strong enough to quarrel over matters that, though serious, are not vital at this point."

There was also a serious disagreement between Lyabedzka and Milinkevich about how the campaign should be run. Milinkevich stressed iron discipline, a highly centralized campaign team, and the candidate's "near-dictatorial authority" over the resources and activities of his team. Lyabedzka called for a very different organization, saying that the campaign should be coordinated by a special administrative body empowered by the congress, ensuring that all parties were able to contribute to the strategy.

EIGHT KEY VOTES

The vote itself highlighted a deep cleavage. Milinkevich fell just shy of the 50-percent majority needed for victory in the first round of voting, gaining 383 votes or 47.1 percent of the total. Lyabedzka trailed significantly behind, with 263 votes (32.3 percent), followed by the Communists' Kalyakin, with 152 votes (18.7 percent). Despite that commanding position, Milinkevich only narrowly won the second round, gaining 16 votes to take him to 399, while Lyabedzka added 128, to finish on 391.

This congress was called to instill a sense of solidarity among the rank and file of the various opposition groups with the memory of the 2001 presidential campaign still fresh. Four years ago there was widespread unhappiness when the opposition's single candidate, Uladzimir Hancharyk, was picked behind closed doors by the five would-be challengers. And a note of unity was again struck immediately after the result was announced. The delegates rose from their seats to chant "Zhyvie Belarus!" ("Long live Belarus!"). Milinkevich told delegates, "I do not believe that I am better than any of you at all. I do not call myself a winner. We are strong only when we are united." The runner-up, visibly worn out and disappointed, took up the theme. "I don't believe I have lost today," Lyabedzka said. "I could lose neither to Milinkevich, nor to Kalyakin, nor to Shushkevich. The only loss there can be is to Alyaksandr Lukashenka."

Still, despite the warm welcome, many delegates were disappointed with the outcome. Some in the ranks of Lyabedzka's party swiftly displayed their dissatisfaction. Concerned that the Milinkevich-affiliated network of NGOs would play first fiddle in the campaign, the United Civic Party's Mogilev, Brest, and Minsk regional branches refused to throw their support behind the winner. The strength of the coalition was put to the test on 5 October, when Lyabedzka asked the party's political council for a vote of confidence. If he failed, he promised to resign as party leader, a step that would have left the future of the opposition coalition uncertain. In the event, Lyabedzka won full support for himself and his desire to abide by the coalition agreement.

Milinkevich's first moves were conciliatory. He asked Kalyakin to supervise the campaign, and offered Lyabedzka the leadership of the committee tasked with formulating the united opposition's political strategy. He may be hoping to forestall a repeat of what happened in 2001, when many of those who worked for the early frontrunner to challenge Lukashenka, Syamion Domash, refused to work for the opposition's eventual candidate, the trade union leader Hancharyk. Milinkevich led Domash's campaign.

CHALLENGERS TO THE CHALLENGER

Much of the patchwork quilt of Belarus' political opposition can now be found in the coalition. Some patches, though, are still missing. If a truly united front is to be stitched together, more work needs to be done, as a number of politicians, such as Alyaksandr Vajtovich, former head of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament, and Belarusian Lyceum director Kolas, who also heads the Council of Intelligentsia, have promised to bid for the presidency if Milinkevich performs poorly.

Another source of worry for the coalition is Alyaksandr Kazulin, former rector of Belarusian State University and now head of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada). His party members actively took part in the congress, but were given no instructions on how to vote. Some party members felt an affinity with the winner. Milinkevich "is closer to me thanks to his ideas, which are the ideas of Belarusian moderation," said Ales Shcharbak from the town of Shklow. "We don't need the aggression shown by Anatol Lyabedzka." Kazulin himself, however, did not attend the congress, instead going on a political fundraising tour abroad.

One man who will not join a united front is Zyanon Paznyak, perhaps Belarus' foremost leading communist-era dissident and once the leading light of the nationalist Belarusian People's Front. Now, though, he leads, from exile, only a splinter party - the Conservative-Christian Party of the Belarusian People's Front - and habitually expresses disgust at every opposition candidate and the whole coalition project. "The so-called democratic opposition was created with the help of Russian and German intelligence services," Paznyak asserted in an interview for RFE/RL. "This opposition is not based on national principles; it is Moscow-oriented." Paznyak promised to run for the presidency in 2006.

Few believe that the Kremlin, which has - like Lukashenka - frequently expressed concern at the possibility of another "color" revolution in the Soviet successor states following those in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, supports the opposition. There was, though, a Russian presence, in the form of Nikita Belykh, the new leader of the Russian liberal party Union of Right Forces. "Of course, our party has some personal sympathies, on which I would rather not elaborate" he told TOL, hinting at Lyabedzka, known in Russia as a liberal and a Russia-friendly politician. "Still we will support any candidate selected by the congress," Belykh said and promised that his party would send around 1,000 election observers to Belarus next year.

Belarus' southern neighbors also paid close attention to the Congress. Serhiy Evtushenko, deputy leader of the Ukrainian Pora movement, told TOL that the congress had "complete legitimacy" and that Milinkevich truly represents the collective choice of Belarusian democrats.

Support from the United States and the European Union for a single candidate was very evident: U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain sent a video to the congress and Janusz Onyszkiewicz, the Polish vice-president of the European Parliament, appeared on stage to urge the delegates "to go to the end with a single candidate."

STRIKING THE DIFFERENCES

There is no hint that any of the candidates have the skeletons in their closet suggested by Paznyak. But it was notable that three of the four felt the need to bring political skeletons out on show and apologize for them. Lyabedzka sought to justify being a member of Lukashenka's team in 1994 and helping him to gain power; Kalyakin excused his inability to speak Belarusian, and he also felt obliged to explain that the present-day Communists have nothing in common with their Stalin-era predecessors; and Shushkevich repeatedly defended signing the Belavezha treaty that dissolved the Soviet Union, an issue still painful for many in the Communist Party and beyond.

Only Milinkevich's closet so far seems bare. Even the state's propaganda teams have had difficulties targeting him, and he remains a little-known figure across the country. Milinkevich is certainly rather different from his main rival at the congress. Unlike Lyabedzka, he favors stronger presidential rule in the early phases of democratization. He is also less tolerant towards the present regime. In his speech Lyabedzka promised to guarantee security for Lukashenka and for his financial assets, a position not supported by Milinkevich, who said he would not offer protection to Lukashenka or any other state official if they had committed a crime.

Milinkevich is also very different from Lukashenka - from his haircut and his way of speaking (smooth and calm) to his vision of Belarus as a truly European country rather than a throwback to the Soviet era. There are also major differences between the president and his challenger on a personal level. Milinkevich's first words as a single candidate were dedicated to his wife Inna Kuley, who, smiling and bowing to the jubilant public, took the stage next to her husband. In 11 years in power, Lukashenka has never appeared in public with the first lady - let alone let his wife drive him in a car, as Inna did for her tired but happy husband.

In the throng at the congress - 160 journalists representing nearly 80 press and broadcast outlets as did diplomats from almost every Western mission and political figures from Ukraine and Russia - the usually deeply intrusive regime seemed crowded out. The event was also a tightly controlled affair, with 40 activists of the opposition National Alliance youth organization providing security, checking delegates' badges, and sealing off all entrances and exits.

Still, the state machinery found a way in after, rather reluctantly, the opposition permitted three crews from the most notorious Belarusian state television channels to film the event. Their first subject was a group of actors in clown suits, two of whom posed as gay men. They ambushed the delegates on the front steps of the Palace of Culture, foisting balloons on them, and told the cameras that they would support a candidate who promoted gay marriage and could perform a kiss. The footage was used two days later on all major state channels in order to show "what kind of people are interested in choosing a single candidate." One state television program, At the Center of Attention, ended with the mocking slogan "Take Belarus into Europe through the arse."

Surprisingly, the programs did not attack Milinkevich personally. Other, less pleasant surprises may be in store.

Source:

http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=136&NrSection=1&NrArticle=15173