Two party coalitions: New configuration of the opposition

Summary

The year 2013 became a year of summarizing the results of the parliamentary elections of 2012 and further regrouping of the oppositional structures. By the results of the parliamentary campaign the authorities made amendments to the Election Code and changed legislation on political parties. During 2013, two coalitions formed within the opposition – Narodny referendum (‘Popular Referendum’) and Talaka (in Belarusian talaka means ‘cooperative work, mutual aid’). These coalitions position themselves as long-term associations, within them preparation for the presidential election of 2015 will be organized. Formation of the oppositional coalitions inside the country influenced the trend of reducing influence of the emigration structures. This factor affected evolution of the rhetoric of the oppositional activists: issues of economic policy, necessity of reforms, democratization of the election legislation and threats to the sovereignty came to the foreground. These topics became elements of the election platforms of the oppositional parties in the local councils election campaign.

Trends:

• Recurrent changes to the legislation on elections and political parties are aimed at reducing chances of the opposition;
• The theme of boycott seized to be in the focus of attention of the oppositional parties;
• Popular Referendum and Talaka promise to be key players in the preparatory stage for the presidential election of 2015;
• The influence of emigration structures of the Belarusian opposition is decreasing.

Changes in the regulations on political parties and elections

As of January 1, 2014 there were 1,057 organizational structures of parties, which means that during 2013 36 new divisions of political parties were registered (as of January 1, 2013 there were 1,021 organizations). In September 2013, the Ministry of Justice for the fifth time denied registration to the Belarusian Communist Party of Workers. The reason for the denial was legal violations during the nomination of candidates to the party congress. The neo-communists have been trying to achieve legal status since 2009.

The total number of the political parties has not changed – currently there are 15 registered parties, and the last successful attempt of registration was in 2000, when the Conservative Christian Party of the Belarusian Popular Front (CChP-BPF) was registered.

Passed in the second reading on October 2, 2013 and signed by the president on October 4 was the law On amendments and changes to the laws of the Republic of Belarus on political parties and other public associations. This law came into force on February 20, 2014. It should be noted that the legislation on political parties has been very unstable: since 1999 the law On political parties has been changed 11 times, save in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2012.

According to the new law, the government is to establish a national information resource for the unified system of registration of public associations and political parties. According to the Ministry of Justice, a number of its departments is going to be involved in this work, and the public will have access only to part of the stored data. The law has a new norm that a public association can be converted into a political party according to an order set by the regulations of the Republic of Belarus. Earlier legislation did not prohibit turning a public association into a political party.

The law stipulates that a public association and its legal persons are not eligible to any direct or indirect financial funding from abroad six months before the decision on transforming into a political party. Observers pointed out that the legal mechanism of transforming a public association into a political party was developed with the view of establishing a party of the ruling power on the basis of the public association Belaya Rus (‘White Ruthenia’). On April 30, 2013 ordinance No. 327 limited by more than two times (from 451 to 195 organizations) the list of public associations eligible to the reduced rate 0.1 for tenancy.

On November 25, 2013, the Election Code was amended by another law. This bill had been developed since late 2012 (immediately after the parliamentary elections), but its contents had been kept secret until September 2013 both from the public and the core international organization–the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The bill of amendments to the Election Code1 elaborated by the opposition was ignored by the state authorities, so were the demands to organize public discussions of the bill.

The majority of the changes are aimed at reducing election financing (less budgetary financing for campaigning together with an increased number of options for establishing election funds) and eliminating the loopholes that the opposition used to turn to during election campaigns (e.g. the introduced ban on campaigning for ignoring the elections). Some amendments to the Election Code were tested during the elections to local councils of deputies of the 27th convocation on March 23, 2014. Others, e. g. the permit to establish election funds during registration of action groups, will be tested for the first time during the next presidential election.

Political agenda

The key discussion of 2012 regarding the tactical actions of the opposition did not continue in 2013. The pro-boycott forces failed to unite their efforts based on the common vision of non-participation in the parliamentary elections. The CChP-BPF, European Belarus, Belarusian Movement, some civil entities remain uncoordinated and separated. Before the local elections 2014 there was no significant campaigning for non-participation, and the reason seems to be not the ban introduced into the Election Code.

From the most topical issues for the opposition in 2011–2012, in 2013 the only discussions in the media were those of release of political prisoners and necessity to develop the common format of nominating the joint oppositional candidate for the presidential election in 2015. The competing suggestions were the option of primaries (suggested by the United Civic Party (UCP), backed by BChD and entities of Talaka coalition) and a congress of democratic forces (suggested by the BPF Party, backed by the BChD and entities of the coalition Popular Referendum). Besides the issues of nominating the joint candidate and potential nominees for the presidential candidate, this block of issues also includes the issues of the future Ploshcha (Belarusian Maidan) and the necessity to fight for free elections.

The political agenda of the opposition in 2013 witnessed an increase of communication on social and economic, as well as program issues. The Belarusian Christian Democracy continued its campaign for family values and against abortion, backed the campaign criticizing state policy on fighting swine fever and the campaign against cruel treatment of animals. For the UCP the priority campaign was against increasing taxes and introduction of various new duties (including a traffic permit for cars). In 2013, the BPF Party campaigned against the introduction of a new mechanism of owner’s control in joint stock ventures that infringed upon minority stockholders’ rights for the benefit of state interference with the management of companies.

During 2013, the issue of protecting the country’s sovereignty became more and more topical. Starting in the spring of 2013, when first information appeared that Russia might deploy an air force base on the territory of Belarus, this topic became leading for the BPF Party. As far as the deployment of Russian planes became reality, other parties get involved, too. The issue of protection from foreign intrusion became acute in November 2013, when, being pressed by Russia, the Ukrainian government renounced signing the agreement on association with the EU, which triggered mass protests in the country. During this crisis practically all oppositional forces expressed their stance toward its development, many political leaders personally visited the sites of protests (heads of the Movement For Freedom, the BPF Party, the campaign Tell the Truth, the UCP spoke at Euromaidan).

It should be noted that when the campaigning for the election to local councils started, the political parties staked on nation-wide campaigns of a general character–related to the general political and not local issues: the BChD focused on the campaign against excessive alcohol consumption, the UCP gathered signatures for the resignation of the government, the BPF Party campaigned for protection of sovereignty and against Russian military bases.

Formation of two oppositional coalitions

After the parliamentary campaign in 2012 the opposition was extremely fragmented. The coordination structures (the so-called The Six) virtually stopped functioning, during the parliamentary elections new associations were not established. Nevertheless, during 2013, an initially situational, then strategic, partnership within the informal association the Movement For Freedom – the campaign Tell the Truth – the BPF Party started developing into a fully-fledged coalition. Despite having no agreement on tactics during the parliamentary election, these organizations managed to build trust in mutual relations. On this ground in May 2013 the three political entities announced a common initiative called Popular Referendum, which later was joined by the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Assembly) and the Party of Freedom and Progress, as well as several regional public initiatives.

The declared goal of the Popular Referendum was to gather signatures for the referendum on the most crucial social issues. Although the initiators of the campaign cherish no illusion of the possibility for a real referendum in Belarusian reality they declare the determination to gather so many signatures that the authorities would not be able to ignore. During the summer of 2013 representatives of the new initiatives visited tens of Belarusian cities and towns to determine the most burning social issues. The information collected during these visits was analyzed by the experts and they formulated six questions for the gathering of signatures:

1. Do you agree that public health and educational institutions should provide free services for the citizens of Belarus?
2. Do you agree that heads of executive councils of towns, districts, and regions should be elected by the citizens by direct vote?
3. Do you support economic integration, association and visa-free area with the European Union?
4. Do you agree that to secure the neutral status of Belarus, any deployment of foreign military objects, or nuclear weapons, should be banned and Belarusian soldiers should not serve abroad?
5. Do you agree that one person cannot take the position of the president for more than 2 terms?
6. Do you agree that money received from the projected privatization, should be directed, in the first place, to compensate deposits lost during the devaluation in 2011 and to create new jobs?

Participants of the Popular Referendum initiative declared their partnership to be long-term, including the next presidential and parliamentary elections. The Popular Referendum suggests a ‘congress of democratic forces’ as a mechanism of nominating a joint presidential candidate from the opposition. Although the mechanism of the new initiative was formulated quite vaguely, the popularity of the approach ‘to talk to people’ and the weight of the coalition members stimulated structuring in those circles of the opposition that had not joined this initiative.

On September 22, in Minsk an agreement was signed on establishing a new oppositional coalition–the Civil Alliance for Fair and Honest Elections for a Better Life Talaka. It included two parties (the UCP, the Belarusian United Left Party ‘A Just World’) and a number of organizing committees or non-registered entities (the organizing committee of the Party of Workers, the Belarusian Women’s Party Nadzieja, the civil human rights association For Fair Elections, Belarusian Movement party, movement Young Belarus). The goal of the coalition is to change the authoritarian regime and restore the constitutional rights of the citizens, in the first place – the right for free election of the government and the country’s course of development. As the creators of the new association see it, the authoritarian regime could be changed through free and fair elections.

The agreement also points out that differences in programs, corporate or personal ambitions must not hinder cooperative work of the coalition. Having the common vision of the agenda for changes, the politicians intend to establish a joint strategy, form a joint team and nominate a joint presidential candidate from the alliance.

In reality, the political activities of the Popular Referendum were more visible during the year than those of Talaka. The declared intention to hold primaries to define the joint presidential candidate from the opposition remained unrealized. During the local elections the structures of the Popular Referendum had common tactics for participation in the election and became initiators of the observation campaign Right for Choice, joined by the BChD and the Green Party.

Beginning of local elections: ‘business as usual’

The alliance Talaka had no common tactics for the local elections: some Talaka structures called for a boycott, but its key participants – the UCP and the Left Party–decided to participate in the elections. Their initiated campaign For Fair Elections remained on paper.

The elections of the deputies of local councils of the 27th convocation took place on March 23, 2014. In 2013, two important stages of the election campaign took place–nomination of representatives to territorial and constituency election committees (TEC and CEC respectively). Already at the stage of forming TECs and CECs the election campaign took its usual way, which did not allow the oppositional parties and associations to participate in the work of election organizing bodies. The majority of the nominees from pro-regime associations were included into TECs and CECs, whereas the absolute majority of the oppositional and independent nominees were denied participation.

Compared to local elections 2010, the oppositional parties demonstrated the regular activity in nominating members to TECs and CECs. Whereas in 2010 five oppositional parties nominated 229 representatives, in 2013 there were 4 democratic parties with a total number of 227 nominees to TECs and CECs. At the same time, pro-regime parties and public associations, loyal to the ruling power, nominated more representatives.2

5,438 people were nominated to 364 CECs, with 504 – from the political parties (9.3%). The members of the campaign Right for Choice nominated 56 people to CECs, and only three were included: Ihar Menshykau to Biarozaŭskaja CEC No.24 in Brest region, Lera Som–to Polack central CEC No. 25 in Viciebsk region, Aleksei Charniayeu – to Siennienskaja CEC No. 19 of Minsk region (all three from the BPF Party). The ratio of the Right for Choice representatives’ inclusion into commissions accounted for 5.4%. Compare: during the parliamentary elections in 2008, 32% of the nominees from oppositional parties were included in the CECs; during the parliamentary election in 2012 – 24%.,

As for pro-regime organizations, Belaya Rus had 96.5% of its members included in the CECs, the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM) – 89.5%, the Belarusian Women’s Union – 98.2%, the Belarusian Public Organization of Veterans – 91.8%, the Communist Party of Belarus – 85.5%, the Republican Party of Labor and Justice – 71.9%, the Belarusian Agrarian Party – 77.8%, the Belarusian Social and Sports Party – 100%.

The number of representatives of the oppositional parties in TECs and CECs turned out to be even smaller than that of local elections in 2010: the total number of oppositional representative was 87 (15 of them – in TECs) in 2010, in 2013–16 (5 of them – in TECs). Therefore, despite that the number of nominated oppositional candidates was the same as in the local elections in 2010, the number of oppositional representatives in TECs fell by three times, in CECs – by 6.5 times.

Conclusion

The coalitions of the oppositional parties and associations Popular Referendum and Talaka, which formed in 2013 and were tried out during local elections, are likely to be key subjects during preparation for the presidential election in 2015. During 2014 these two coalitions are likely to discuss the possible procedure of nominating a joint candidate and launching a process of nominating candidates from both coalitions. The chance of a compromise between them is small. At the same time, the absence of concord about the joint candidate might stimulate other structures, not participating in the two coalitions, to nominate their own candidates.