Presidential Campaign
Vladimir Rovdo

Summary
The major election campaign of 2010 did not become a “stunning election” when the authorities, to their own surprise, surrender the reins of government to another political force or have to make essential concessions to the opposition.1 There was such election in 1994 and it was called “a reactionary revolt of the masses” against the absolute power of the political establishment. The 1994 election campaign was however conducted in strict compliance with the fundamentals of competitive and fair elections, which the Vyacheslav Kebich’s government adhered to. All presidential campaigns that followed were actually Alexander Lukashenko’s self-appointment for new terms accompanied by massive violations of the election laws reported by all the OSCE’s monitoring groups. The 2010 “election” saw the exactly same scenario. It however shook Alexander Lukashenko’s position since the outcome of the election and brutal disruption of the protest rally foiled the two-year-long efforts to bring about a rapprochement between the European Union and Belarus and to diminish dependence on Russia. The election and subsequent reprisals against political activists weakened the opposition, which was splintered even without that.

Tendencies:
– Patchy amendments to the election laws did not change the election process essentially; the election machine built into the administrative command system still has enough capacity to secure a desired election outcome whatever contenders do  or whoever voters really ballot for;
– The dropping rating of the head of state compelled resorting to risky populist economic shifts, but even the unsecured wage hike did not result in hard-core loyalty, first of all in Minsk;
– When the time came to choose the geopolitical orientation, President Lukashenko preferred the Russian vector over the European one, as it did not require radical economic and political transformations unsafe for the personal rule regime in Belarus;
– The opposition failed to consolidate, which frustrated the regime replacement strategy pursued by most candidates, but helped to hold the mass protest rally on December 19 and prevent recognition of Lukashenko’s self-appointment as an election win by the West.

Overall results

According to the Central Election Commission, Lukashenko polled 79.6%; Andrey Sannikov got 2.43%; Yaroslav Romanchuk 1.98%; Grygory Kostusev 1.97%; Vladimir Neklyaev 1.78%; Viktor Tereshchenko 1.19%; Vitaly Rymashevsky 1.09%; Nikolay Statkevich 1.05%; Aleksandr Mikhalevich 1.02%, and Dmitry Uss 0.39%. 6.4% voted against all.2
According to the public opinion surveys conducted by Belarusian sociologists from the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), 51.1% of respondents voted for Lukashenko (39.9% in Minsk and 62.3% in rural districts); Neklyaev polled 8.3%; Sannikov 6.1%; Rymashevsky 3.7%; Romanchuk 3.2%; Mikhalevich 2.7%; Statkevich 1.7%; Kostusev 1.6%; Tereshchenko 0.6% and Uss 0.5% (i.e. 28.4% for all contenders together). 5.1% voted against all; 3.8% refused to answer. Counting the virtual votes of those who refused to answer, the figures made up 58.0%, 9.7%, 7.0%, 4.2%, 3.7%, 3.0%, 1.9%, 1.8%, 0.7%, and 0.6% respectively (32.6% for all contenders). We remind that on March 19, 2006, Lukashenko won 63.1% of the votes (of the total number of those who came to the polling stations), and three opponents of his (including Sergey Gaidukevich) had 30.3%. It means that Lukashenko won the presidential election again, which all previous pre-election opinion surveys IISEPS predicted, and redistribution of nearly 1,350,000 of votes for the benefit of the incumbent president and mass arrests were unnecessary actually.3
The past campaign was notoriously distinctive not so much due to the redistribution of votes for Lukashenko’s benefit, as due to the unprecedentedly brutal crackdown on the most active part of the Belarusian opposition, which was struggling for power in a peaceful manner. Those actions of the authorities were not provoked by the opponents of the regime and can hardly be explained from a logical point of view.
More than 50 people face criminal charges in the case on organization of mass unrest. Among them are seven former presidential candidates Andrey Sannikov (currently in detention), Nikolay Statkevich (in detention), Vladimir Neklyaev (under house arrest), Vitaly Rymashevsky (released on his own recognizance), Ales Mikhalevich (released on his own recognizance), Grigory Kostusev (under suspicion, released on his own recognizance), and Dmitry Uss (under suspicion, released on his own recognizance).
All sorts of government agencies in the capital and in provinces worked hard so that Lukashenko could stay in office for the fourth term. The opposition made a lot of mistakes and entered the campaign as eight uncoordinated stand-alone teams that only smoothed things down for the pro-presidential forces.

Election environment and authorities’ campaign

Lukashenko’s success was ensured long before the 2010 election. The president admitted in an interview to Euronews on June 24, 2010, “I have enough political intuition, enough methods to see it [whether the Belarusians liked him or not - V. R.]. The election can only confirm that.”4 In other words, the head of state briefly yet intelligibly described his plan for the oncoming election campaign and set administrative tasks for functionaries.
First of all, we should lay emphasis on Belarus’ essential dissimilarity from other European states, not only democratic, but also some hybrid regimes, for instance competitive authoritarian systems. Elections there provide support to one or another leader legitimizing his position as a ruler. It is different in Belarus: in the beginning, the administrative resources and officials of all levels and ranks are mobilized (which Lukashenko calls “other methods”) to gain hundred-percent confidence in election victory and after that comes an election, which only confirms the preset result that has nothing to do with actual election returns. It isLukashenko’s know-how, which he is very proud of and takes every opportunity to mention it and highlight his uniqueness.
When talking about equal opportunities for all contenders with a Euronews reporter, Lukashenko hoped that the Europeans are ignorant of the situation in Belarus. The proclaimed equality was certainly out of the question. The low ratings of the opposition candidates showed that the incumbent president had secured his decisive advantage – informational, financial, and organizational – at the very start of the race. Lukashenko controls television, radio, large newspapers, while the Internet still remains “entertainment” for a small audience of those inclined to protest that makes it impossible to raise ratings of opposition candidates quickly and effectively.
Reputed political scientist Aris Trentidis was right saying that the Belarusians’ economic dependence on the state is used by the powers that be for consolidation. It remained highly valuable during the 2010 presidential campaign. The researcher takes credit for outlining of this structural factor which after all explains consolidation of authoritarianism in Belarus: the combination of a lack of economic liberalization and political democratization.
In fact, unlike other post-communist states, Belarus has been doing without structural market-oriented reforms for over one decade and a half. This situation brings forth people’s dependence on the government never-before-seen in present-day Europe: in 1995-2007, 55% to 60% of the employed population worked for state-run enterprises and establishments.5 On top of this, the tiny private sector of Belarus’ economy has fallen under tight control of the state. It all largely retards development of nongovernmental organizations, political parties, and independent media outlets. People’s economic dependence on the government restrains their criticism addressed to the authorities and their support for the political opposition.
Before the election, the government worked diligently to fetch voters thus shaking very unstable macroeconomic frame. Economic analyst Fyodor Zhakhov notes, “Since August 2010, the country’s foreign trade deficit has expanded much faster than the year before. To make up for that gap, Belarus needs to borrow almost USD 1 billion from foreign sources on a monthly basis. German economic advisor Riccardo Giucci is alarmed at the dynamics of the Belarusian foreign debt, which had reached 45% of GDP by mid-2010, an increase from 20% back in 2007. If this growth rate persists, Belarus’ foreign debt could reach a level, where the country might fail to service it. This economic policy will inevitably bring about inflation hikes, and Giucci believes consumer inflation will exceed 10% in 2011. Furthermore, marked fiscal difficulties will likely remain, as the state budget is suffering from the growing deficit, while the government prepares for a massive increase in wages in the public sector, by 30%. The expert believes the wage push may affect the competitiveness of Belarusian producers on foreign markets and will further deteriorate the foreign trade figures. Anyway, the German economist is not the first to point this out to the Belarusian authorities, which would not listen to anyone, including the IMF, prior to the presidential election.”6
It becomes clear now why the presidential election was held ahead of schedule: there would be much more people in 2011 unsatisfied with their financial status.
Belarus’ unreformed economy did not stagnate as it could be predicted, but developed quite rapidly until 2009. It made it possible for President Lukashenko to share a part of the profits with the population thus enhancing its dependence and obedience even more. The situation is also unique as such state economy “miracles” are observed nowhere in the world nowadays.
This “miracle” is however explained by the long-lasting enormous support for the regime coming from the Russian Federation. This orientation to a single foreign partner, quite dangerous when it comes to national independence, began to change in 2008 after Alexander Kozulin, Lukashenko’s chief opponent in the previous election, was discharged from prison and after Belarus was involved in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program.
During the global financial recession, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank gave loans, which helped the regime to cope with difficulties. It looked like the western foreign policy vector was attached the same importance as the eastern vector. Since the policy of rapprochement with the European Union was not accompanied by economic or political reforms, this U-turn had a latent possibility of transformation into one more stone to the foundation of individual rule in Belarus.
This Minsk-EU rapprochement peaked on November 2, 2010 when the foreign ministers of Poland and Germany came to Belarus in the height of the pre-election campaign and promised generous financial support to the amount of €3 billion in exchange for free elections. During that memorable meeting, Lukashenko said, “The president and members of parliament have never been elected in an undemocratic way. Especially the president. The forthcoming election will be much better now because you want it… You can even count votes if you want.”7 It is worth noting that the Belarusian regime now claims that it was Poland and Germany to hatch a plot to overthrow the president against all constitutional fundamentals.
Right from the start, Lukashenko’s election campaign was unwinding against the background of the information war between Belarus and Russia, which however ended before December with a visit of the Belarusian leader to Moscow. I cannot but agree with Zianon Pazniak, who said in this respect, “Their political qualities [meaning opponents of the regime who had been cherishing hope that Russia would dismiss the election as fraud until the last minute - V.R.] were tested December 9, 2010 when Lukashenko unexpectedly went to Moscow to meet with his alleged “foe”, Medvedev, signed documents on the common economic space, harmful to Belarus, received a promise on duty-free oil supplies in exchange, and came back to Minsk pretty much satisfied.”8
All the above considered, the crackdown on Lukashenko’s opponents was totally uncalled for. The president fully controlled the situation. The mobilized executive chain of command, Central Election Commission, governmental mass media – the entire mechanism was running to pave the way for his next self-appointment. The populist economic policy – no matter that it led to a dead end – was beneficial for most voters. Prior to the election, the government entered into meaningful agreements with Russia, and Europe was likely to recognize the election this time, probably not as free and fair as it would like it to be, but exhibiting progress towards European standards.
The opposition managed to attract 30,000 to 40,000 people to the protest rally, but in general, it failed to consolidate and was not ready to assume power. There is no radical opposition in Belarus capable of using force to confront the government. Therefore, the accusations that political parties and NGOs intended to be aggressive during the peaceful protest rally were absolutely groundless.
Boris Berezovsky, who knows the situation in Belarus well enough, believes the 19 December events were instigated by the Russian special services. All that happened on that night was advantageous to Russia and totally disadvantageous to Belarus and the West. Russia got unlimited opportunities to orchestrate the further situation in Belarus and, as a matter of fact, drove the Belarusian authorities into a corner. Berezovsky has no doubt that Lukashenko’s closest associates, his own special services, just framed him and misguided him on what was really happening in the city square on December 19. “And those officers certainly work for the Russian special services as well,” he says.9
I reject this conspiracy theory, as I think it was Lukashenko and nobody else to make the final decisions being perfectly aware of what was going on in the square. It’s another matter that those decisions were coordinated with the Russian leaders. It is well known that survival and reproduction of the Belarusian regime cannot rely on strategic partnership with the West in any case, but desperately needs aid and support from “brotherly” Russia, which does pressurize Belarus demanding democratic reforms, being an authoritarian state itself, actually.
It does not mean that all speculations of the Belarusian authorities and moderate opposition concerning the policy of liberalization in Belarus are a delusion or self-delusion. Official Minsk has never regarded rapprochement with EU as a long-term strategy, but only as a tactical bargaining chip to squeeze economic preferences from Russia. The 2010 election campaign cleared the air: leaders of the pro-European opposition are neutralized, the regime obtained support from Russia, and the country is in isolation from the civilized world where the Belarusian ruler was not going to lead people anyway by his own admission.

Opposition’s campaign

It is hard to assess the opposition’s participation in the presidential campaign in a word. There were ups and downs in comparison with the year 2006. The fact that most candidates were highly motivated to fight to the end and attracted a huge crowd to the protest rally was an appreciable step forward. The presidential candidates realized that elections in Belarus are a sharade, and mostly focused not so much on election as mobilization technologies. They tried hard to make the best use of the three months of the race concentrating on one crucial point: they explained voters that the election was not free and fair and call on people to come together for a final protest rally on December 19.
In terms of political science, most opposition contenders intended to impose their own game aimed at replacement of the regime upon the president and his associates instead of seeking a pact with the authorities. In the opinion of known American political scientist Michael McFaul, “Transitions from communist rule to new regime types are so different from the third wave democratic transitions in the 1970s and 1980s that they should not even be grouped under the same rubric… Specifically, the relationship between mode of transition and democratization outcome is totally different in the post-communist world as compared with Southern Europe and Latin America. Imposed transitions from above in the former communist world produced not partial democracy but dictatorship. It is instead revolutionary transitions – the mode of tran­sition thought to be least likely to facilitate democratic outcomes by third-wave theorists – that have actually produced the most stable and consolidated democracies in the post-communist world. Balanced, stale­mated transitions – those most likely to facilitate the emergence of democracy-enhancing pacts in Latin American and Southern Eu­rope – have instead led to unstable regimes of both the democratic and the autocratic variety in the post-communist world.”10
Activity within the “replacement” paradigm was more like a non-conscious choice of a certain part of the Belarusian opponents to the regime, rather than a well-thought-out victory strategy, but it certainly might lead to success under certain conditions. It should also be kept in mind that they had to confront the harshest authoritarian regime remaining on the European continent, which has eliminated parliamentarianism, the party system, and elements of independent judicial branch.
This strategy was also a kind of a reaction to the very poor campaign of the joint candidate nominated by the United Democratic Forces coalition (UDF) in 2006 and the political forces in Belarus, which have been advocating a dialogue with the regime as the only opportunity to transform it gradually from above. The For Freedom movement and some of its allies still persist in this opinion.
The fact that the European Union did not accept Lukashenko’s self-appointment as a free and fair election is undoubtedly the second accomplishment of the opposition. Many political scientists and politicians say and write that this threat was very real.
After all, the opposition’s performance was much better in Minsk, than in the provinces. Lukashenko did not poll even 40% in the capital. According to the IISEPS, the president was not far ahead of his rivals as elsewhere across the country.
Now we will try to analyze shortcomings of the democratic candidates’ campaign. First and foremost, it is the split in the opposition. The UDF is not a distant past. Until fairly recently, the coalition united almost all opposition forces from the democrats-communists to the democrats-nationalists from the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF). The largest opposition association began falling apart after the 2007 congress. Supporters of former joint candidate Alexandr Milinkevich (mostly members of nationalist parties and NGOs) attempted to form a new association – the Belarusian Independent Block (BIB) – but did not survive the strength test either and actually fell to pieces after failed to compromise over a joint candidate.
Attempts to arrange a primary election among opposition parties and public associations aimed at nomination of a joint candidate initiated by the United Civic Party came to nothing. The Belarusian primaries struck a stone of uncompromising attitude exhibited by the former joint candidate of the UDF and his followers. Nonetheless, on August 24, 2010, representatives of some political parties and organizations put their signatures under an agreement on coordination of actions. Six paragraphs of the agreement called for cooperation in such areas as community outreach and negotiations with the authorities, monitoring of elections at polling stations, and organization of mass protest actions in case of improper ballot procedures.11
Later, during the campaign, leader of European Belarus campaign Sannikov and leader of the Speak the Truth campaign Neklyaev entered into an agreement being the most popular presidential candidates. It was obviously not enough. The lack of coordination was dramatic both at the start and the finish of the election campaign.
Another point is closely linked with the one above. Leaders of most political parties regarded participation in the presidential election as an opportunity to popularize themselves and increase visibility of organizations they represented. Thus some of the parties nominated not their chairmen, but young and ambitious vice chairmen.
They believed that the three months would be enough to achieve the stated objectives, which was a strategic mistake. None of the party candidates could count for the victory or at least make it through to the second round standing alone, because the public at large just did not know them well. A narrow channel of opportunities really opened for them, but it was shut down right after the official election result was announced. As a matter of fact, the parties had to create a semblance of political pluralism in the country (first of all for European observers) during the campaign. It would be wiser to use the available scarce resources for an attempt to change the rules of the political game cardinally and create real pluralism in case a joint candidate’s team prevails.
The harbored illusion about Russia’s position and its role in the Belarusian election was one more essential shortcoming. It manifested itself differently among the opposition election runners. On the one hand, Milinkevich and Kostusev painted a fantasy picture of intervention of the pro-Russian opposition. The Belarusian Popular Front developed a strategy of a fight on two fronts. It only poured oil on the flames of conflicts between parties and organizations, and their ambitious leaders speaking on behalf of the opposition. Neklyaev and Sannikov were assigned the role of pro-Russian candidates.
But nothing like that was actually observed. It is enough to study their election programs, TV addresses to the nation, and speeches they made during protest rallies. Andrey Sannikov is a strongly marked pro-European politician, while Vladimir Neklyaev advocates preservation of Belarus’ sovereignty and cautious rapprochement with EU in future. Both Neklyaev and Sannikov played a key role in organization of nonviolent protest actions. Without them it would be hard to explain the Belarusians, Europe, and Russia this simple fact that the authorities redistributed popular vote once again in the 2010 presidential elections.
On the other hand, Neklyaev and Sannikov’s opinion that Russia will not shake hands with Lukashenko after the election is beneath criticism. The authoritarian regime established in Russia has been sponsoring autocracies on the entire post-Soviet space all the time maintaining their heavy dependence on Moscow. At the same time, the Russian elite is not united or consolidated when it comes to the “Belarusian issue.” The oil and gas monopolies linked with European and American capital, which are obviously pulling strings in the Medvedev Administration, are not interested in keeping the Belarusian economic model afloat. They want to establish market relations between the two countries, while the Russian Military-Industrial Complex is still inclined to lobby sponsorship for the Belarusian incumbent head of state.
Over the years of the oil-for-kisses policy, Lukashenko has acquired an image of the only reliable protector of Russia’s interests on the western direction. Therefore the anti-Lukashenko trend set among leaders of the Russian Federation did not last long. After all, Putin decided to place his stake on the retention of power by the first president of Belarus, but imposed quite a number of economic agreements strategically dangerous for Belarus.
The opposition made some other mistakes. Above are the most general ones. The regime used all of them to secure the self-appointment of the Belarusian leader for the fourth presidential term.

Conclusion

The election campaign of 2010 and its outcome were not a surprise to experts, political scientists and journalists. Alexander Lukashenko managed to secure his actual self-appointment for the next term and crushed the politically active part of Belarusian society. But his fourth term will be a tough call for citizens of Belarus, even those who gave votes to this politician open-heartedly.
Belarus’ economic and political systems are in desperate need of pivotal reforms and profound transformations. The country suffocates without them. Belarus finds itself lagging for decades. Only the political minority has shown the understanding that the era of “strict yet fair dictators” ended long ago. The majority still hopes for a miracle as before. But miracles only happen in fairy tales. To be more exact, they cost dearly in real life. Lukashenko’s fourth presidential term is likely to be a period when the Belarusians will have to pay the bills of the regime to the utmost.