(wikimedia.commons.org)
This, of course, was no different to the past five elections Lukashenko has won, complete with blatant electoral fraud, of that special, heartwarming, Eastern European variety (as early as noon on election day the world was treated to images of a middle-aged lady, apparently a member of a local electoral committee, exfiltrating from the polling station via a ladder, accompanied by a hefty looking plastic bag, supposedly filled with votes for Lukashenka’s rivals).
Likewise, as was the case many a time before, Lukashenko made sure that opposition candidates are disqualified from entering the race well ahead of time. The three that were likely to be frontrunners – Viktar Babaryka, Valery Tsepalko and Siarhei Tsikhanouski were either arrested (Babaryka and Tsikhanouski), or left the country (Tsepalko fled to Moscow).
Many other things were different, however, and it is very probable that whatever the outcome of the post-election crisis in Belarus will be, the security environment of Eastern Europe will be altered permanently. While both rigged elections, as well as protests staged in response to electoral fraud have become somewhat of a tradition by now (suffice it to mention the 2006 and 2010 presidential elections, both of which ended in a government crackdown), the sheer scope of the current protests, as well as their violent course showcase a qualitative shift in Belarussian politics.
Arrests of the aforementioned opponents to Lukashenka produced an unlikely outcome; they were replaced by a female trio, consisting of the wives of Tsikhanouski and Tsepkalo (Svetlana and Veronika), and Babaryko’s campaign coordinator, Maria Kolesnikova. Centered around Tsikhanouskaya, who decided to campaign in place of her husband, the trio hit the campaign trail, with their rallies gathering crowds numbering thousands of people even in more remote parts of the country. Neither of the three women was a public figure prior to the elections, let alone a career politician. They have hardly campaigned on a groundbreaking platform, nor provided coherent solutions to the great many problems bugging Belarus (Tsikhanouskaya’s foreign policy program consisted of three points, one of which was “keeping good relations with all neighboring states”).
Rather, “orphaned” by their partners or candidates, they presented an alluring, modern narrative (three women up against Lukashenka and his old guard) – but little beyond that. Arguably then, it was not Tsikhanouska’s platform that attracted popular support; rather, it was an increasing sense of tiredness and dissatisfaction with Lukashenka’s reign, which has now boiled over into full-on protests.
The turmoil comes amid the COVID pandemic, which only exacerbates problems of the ailing Belarussian economy. Lukashenko’s response to the pandemic, emblematic of his “analogue” approach to statecraft has seemingly made many believe that he is not only unable to adequately respond to the problems presented by an increasingly complex international and domestic environment, but also that he is out of touch both with society and the larger world. On a side note, Lukashenko’s failure to selectively target informal communication channels, such as the telegram feed of Belarusian blogger Nexta seemingly underscore Minsk’s inability to smoothly navigate the information environment, lending credibility to the criticism of his “backwardness”.
Even before the COVID pandemic ravaged Belarus’ economy, there had been pressure from Russia. Irked by Lukashenka’s relentless balancing act (which, arguably, has been proving effective for years), the Kremlin has put pressure on Minsk, primarily by rolling back economic privileges Belarus has previously enjoyed (which in turn cemented Lukashenka’s rule, and gave him enough breathing space not to pursue more drastic economic reforms), most painful of which was a steep increase in crude oil and gas prices. Since Belarus draws significant revenue from exporting refined crude, a combination of increased prices, and a collapse in demand caused by the pandemic meant that the state budget took a major hit. All that set the stage for an explosion of discontent.
Protests began almost immediately after polling stations were closed at 9 pm local time; within hours countless scores of people had gathered in cities and towns across the country, from the capital city of Minsk —where tens of thousands attended demonstrations, in spite of road and metro station closures, power and internet outages— to the eastern city of Mogilev, to Brest and Grodno in Western Belarus. While in major cities security forces cracked down on protesters almost immediately, cracks were beginning to show in lesser towns and villages, where the numbers of police and OMON personnel were seemingly smaller, perhaps due to most of the available forces having been concentrated in the cities, and where security forces were not uniform in their reaction to protests, sometimes going as far as refusing to attack the crowds.
Protests continued on Monday, with demonstrators in Minsk using Molotov cocktails, as well as constructing makeshift barricades – again, sights largely unseen in Belarus before. In the hours following the election, multiple pictures of voting protocols began to surface, which nearly uniformly indicated Tsikhanouska scoring a resounding victory; opposition members issued calls to conduct a general strike; the thinking was that should this materialize, protester numbers could swell further, fueled by tens of thousands of workers employed at state-owned enterprises across Belarus (nearly 43% of the labour force is employed at SOE’s; nearly 75% of the country’s GDP is generated by the public sector).
Over the next days, this indeed turned to be the case; within a week of the election, strikes were taking place in eight of the ten largest Belarussian factories. Lukashenka toured some of them, often receiving a less than encouraging welcome. Protests at large state-owned enterprises are ongoing, but as of August 26, threats of a general strike have not materialized. By Tuesday night Tikhanouska was forced to leave the country; she resurfaced in Lithuania early in the morning on Wednesday, August 12.
The first week following the August 9 elections was defined by a spontaneous outburst of discontent that was met with a harsh police response, which did little to quell the protests. This was then followed by a spread of discontent among factory workers, followed by a marked decrease in police brutality. At one point the minister of the interior Yury Karayeu apologised for police brutality. While Lukashenka wished to portray the protesters as predominantly city dwellers, students and intellectuals, workers joining the protests not only made for bad optics but also carried with themselves a real and actual impact on Belarus’ already-struggling economy.
Internally, it seems the regime has remained cohesive; while two members of Belarus’ diplomatic corps have resigned (in Switzerland and Slovakia), local authorities in Grodno were less than enthusiastic about Minsk’s crackdown, and some staff of the Belarussian state TV resigned.
Both internal forces, the military and the police have remained loyal to Minsk, however. The latter is likely to remain so; following the crackdown many believe the police force went past the point of no return, and should Lukashenka be deposed, it too would be held accountable.
A key component of any successful revolution – external support – has been largely missing. The West produces carefully crafted statements from the heights of its moral high ground; Russia is pragmatic but cautious as expected, underscoring that “any foreign interference into Belarus’ internal affairs is unacceptable”. For now, both the people and policymakers of Belarus are left to their own devices.
Even though protests continue, often gathering crowds of tens of thousands of citizens, the opposition itself remains rudderless. Tikhanouska, now based in Lithuania, has made efforts to portray herself as the leader of opposition, going as far as establishing an advisory council made up of 70 public intellectuals that is to guide Belarus towards new elections. Nevertheless, Tikhanouska has neither the experience, the resources nor the structures to effectively lead the movement.
DEMOCRATIC IDEALS AND REALITY
Lukashenko made a living out of balancing, of his very own – rustic (for a lack of a better word) yet effective variety. In the run-up to the election, he had no qualms about drumming up supposed Russian intervention. The arrest of Wagner Group mercenaries, the refusal to meaningfully continue work on the ill-famed “31st road map” with Russia (which would mean far-reaching political integration of Minsk and Moscow), and the overall belligerence of Lukashenko towards at least part of the Kremlin’s elite, has yielded an opening for Lukashenka to engage with the West. Hydrocarbon shipments from the US, delivered to Belarus via Poland and Lithuania were just one result of his about-face.
Yet when the campaign ended, the mass protests erupted, and the harsh police response failed to quash them, it became apparent that the West is unlikely to continue along its path of engaging with Minsk. And so, Lukashenko fired up his “rustic” balancing game. First, the Wagner Group mercs were promptly released, and sent back to Moscow. Then, by August 15, the Vitebsk airborne brigade, one of the elite units of the Belarussian Armed Forces was relocated to the Grodno region in the westernmost part of the country, adjacent to both the Polish and Lithuanian borders, and – to the strategically salient Suwałki Corridor.
All the while Lukashenko picked up on the Western threat narrative, claiming that NATO forces were massing at the Fatherland borders, while the internal discontent was being fueled and coordinated from Washington, via Warsaw. In his three phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin (held on August 15th, 16th, and 21st) Lukashenka has – by his own admission – stated that the situation in the country might soon merit a “stabilizing mission” of the CSTO.
For what it’s worth, Putin did not appear overly excited about this prospect – and for a good reason. Retaining a degree of control over Belarus is an unquestionable imperative for Moscow. Belarus in and of itself is a textbook example of both a buffer zone, while the Smolensk gate is a strategically salient part of Belarus and Russia, a strip of land at the near confluence of the Daugava and Dnieper rivers, which countless invading armies have trodden on their way to and fro Moscow. On a side note it is symbolic that the 103rd airborne was moved from Vitebsk, one of two cities guarding the mouth of the Smolensk gate in the East, towards Grodno, a city of tremendous strategic importance in its own right, the Suwałki Corridor notwithstanding.
Russia has never slept on the importance of Belarus – unlike the West, and has worked tirelessly on developing the countless policy levers the Kremlin now has at its disposal. From economic means to military ties to intelligence, to civil servants, to the fact that, unlike in Ukraine, Belarusians do not have a staunchly negative view of Russia (and there is no doubt the Kremlin would like to keep it that way) – Russia can exert influence over Belarus in a myriad of ways.
This puts Putin and other Russian policymakers in a fairly comfortable position; they could continue to prop up Lukashenka, betting that should he clinch to power, he will have no choice but to make greater concessions to Kremlin; if Lukashenka’s reign is unsustainable, they could work towards either conjuring up an alternative to his rule from the ground up, or hijacking any civic society initiative that develops independently. Only if those measures fail, could Russia consider intervening into the country more directly.
Hence, even if, by virtue of a miracle seldom seen in this world, the dissatisfaction of the broad strata of Belarusian society, translates to something actionable and the incidental leadership succeeds in convincing the military not to – figuratively and literally – pull the trigger, and manages to topple the government, then it would find itself ruling over a country economically broken, internally divided (Lukashenka still enjoys significant support in parts of the country), all the while presiding over governmental structures with a long-standing and far-reaching links to Moscow, that have only ever known Lukashenka’s strongman leadership style.
The Belarussian army has particularly been subjected to thorough, and frankly, state-mandated linkages with the Kremlin. In other words, the opposition – even assuming it is a bona fide opposition, will face immediate pressures, with internal divisions and infighting likely, coupled with a lack of experience, a crippling economic crisis, a lack of “cellular memory” in managing state affairs, security and state apparatus that will have to likely be replaced at higher levels, and could well be infiltrated by the Russians at the lower levels. This means the Kremlin will have an ample selection of levers and policy tools at their discretion to ensure the situation in Belarus develops in a direction it deems beneficial.
And then come the West, preoccupied with both remedying the dire effects of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as with an endless litany of other brewing conflicts, from Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Tawuz, Ladakh, and Taiwan to the South China Sea. Money and manpower is scarce these days, and undertaking a decisive action in defense of a dictator who just crushed pro-democracy protests, and doing so in a place which Russia considers its key strategic asset is unlikely to materialize.
The US is nowhere to be seen. France, engaging in a play-pretend geopolitical game in places it has no leverage short of President Marcon’s grandiosity, is all too eager to engage in the balancing game of the past it knows and loves. Looking for a dance partner in its effort to balance Berlin, the Elysee was quick to both contact Putin and assure anybody who cared to listen that it was ready to mediate the crisis alongside the Russians.
Germany – a country France seeks to balance with the help of Russia – is, on the other hand, plunged in the world of strategic instability and growing power vacuum, and clearly would like to do what it does best; make great cars, sell them to the Chinese (and ship them there via sea lanes protected by the USN), all the while slowly but surely edging towards materializing its time-invariant objective of uniting Europe. Confronted with a host of conflicts on the EU’s periphery, an impending transition of power, it has taken a stand-offish and measured approach.
The reaction of the western European states stands in contrast to that of Poland. A country which armies marching to and fro the Smolensk Gate also had to traverse, a country which yearned the end of history like few other states in the world. It is for that reason that for the better part of the last 30 years Poland has exercised what can only be described as strategic restraint towards the states to its East. This desire to wish “the end of history” into reality resulted – in the case of Belarus – in what boils down to strictly adhering to the predominant narrative weaved by the West; promotion of democracy, human rights and free trade.
The problem is, sticking to this approach was not only ineffective, it was also counterproductive when dealing with Lukashenka, who rightly considered it to be a threat to his rule. This in turn meant Poland little by little was stripped of whatever small influence it once had, and was left with next to zero real policy levers over Minsk.
This lack of real and actual means of shaping reality in Belarus became painfully visible during the turmoil currently enveloping Belarus. Short of striking a moral tone and throwing its diplomatic support behind amorphic opposition, Poland has offered little to affect the power dynamic in Belarus, to the point that it was Lithuania which took the lead in formulating the response to the crisis (as evidenced by Tikhanouska’s escape to Vilnius). Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki requested a European Council meeting devoted to the situation in Belarus, and while the request was granted, and the Council did meet, it produced a document announcing that sanctions will be levied against Minsk authorities, and threatening “negative consequences”.
Ominous as negative consequences may be, the following day President Macron had a phone call with Vladimir Putin, while multiple current and former members of the French political establishment struck a stunningly realist tone when discussing Belarus, that boiled down to the – factually correct – conclusion that none of the Western European states is willing to wander into what is considered to be the Russian sphere of influence, and therefore Kremlin’s heft needs to be acknowledged, and appeased if necessary.
Again, it is hard to dispute this stance; at the end of the day Russia does have extensive influence in Belarus, and it considers the country to be of paramount importance to its interests. The bottom line is, however, that the fate of Belarus is as important to Warsaw as it is to Moscow. This in turn makes the policy Warsaw has pursued in the past 30 years unsustainable.
Poland can ill-afford to stick to its cautious and detached policy of strategic restraint, and will have no choice but to pursue a more proactive and realist approach towards its neighborhood. Warsaw’s realization of the need to abandon strategic restraint could well end up being the one of the most momentous outcomes of the post-election crisis in Belarus.
This is the state of play in Belarus, as of late August of 2020. The protests continue, albeit in a far less violent fashion; if Lukashenko prevails, he will do so at a cost of breaking whatever might have been left of the social contract with his own constituency, and alienating the West. Consequently, it is likely that he will be firmly re-embedded into the Russian area of influence, which he seemingly sought to distance himself from.
If opposition efforts result in his deposition, whether by new elections or otherwise, whoever emerges victorious will have an upward struggle on his or her hands to reformulate the Belarus position vis-a-vis Russia and the West without falling prey to the Kremlin’s campaign of influence. The West wants no part of any of this mess, and Poland finds itself in a dire need of a rethinking of the very core assumptions guiding its Eastern policy. Interesting times, and history making a grand return are what’s in store for Central and Eastern Europe.
Autor
Albert Świdziński
Director of Analysis at Strategy&Future.
Strategy&Future
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