Belarus on the eve of a “political bacchanalia”
Having celebrated its Independence Day on July 3, timed to coincide with the anniversary of the liberation of Minsk from the Nazis, Belarus is entering the traditional summer political off-season. Parliament went on vacation, parties are holding summer training for activists, and politicians are holding consultations, gathering strength for the new political season. A season that, even before it began, received the name “political bacchanalia” from President Lukashenko.
The date of the parliamentary elections has not yet been set and, if we count the deadlines under the Electoral Code, they are still far away. But this is Belarus. Therefore, if Lukashenko said “in November,” then there is no doubt that the voting will take place exactly this month.
And this will be just the beginning - the parliamentary elections will be followed by presidential ones. And there is already a referendum on the new Constitution looming.
They have been talking about constitutional reform in the country for a long time, but this year Lukashenko himself started talking. Moreover, not even as a matter decided, but as a process already in progress. And quite clearly on the horizon, albeit quite clearly, we can see that very transit of power, for the sake of which it makes sense to change the Basic Law, seriously curtailing the now limitless powers of the head of state.
In general, very soon turbulent political processes will begin in the republic, from which it may emerge having changed beyond recognition.
Let's look at the political alignments that exist in Belarus on the eve of the parliamentary elections, which will take an active part in future transformations, and try to predict the composition of this parliament.
The Parliament of Belarus is bicameral. But the Council of the Republic, its upper house, is formed according to the 8x8 formula. Eight deputies are nominated by the regional and Minsk city councils, and another 8 are nominated by Lukashenko personally. Because of this, the process turns out to be behind the scenes and generally uninteresting, and one can expect no more political sensations and opposition from such senators than from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR during the time of dear Leonid Ilyich.
The House of Representatives is already more interesting. Elections to it are held without any party lists, according to the good old Soviet majoritarian system. In this case, there is no second round in principle; the winner takes everything, even if in absolute numbers the result turns out to be quite modest. And this situation sometimes leads to quite interesting results.
The party system in Belarus is in its infancy. Sometimes this condition is even called contraceptive. And this is not surprising, because over the past 20 years not a single new party has been registered in the country.
However, in recent months, a fresh wind has blown for party members - the government is holding consultations with the opposition on liberalizing the Law “On Political Parties,” and the head of the Central Election Commission, Lydia Yermoshina, who also just doesn’t say anything, began to mention the possibility of voting on party lists. But this will happen later in any case. This fall, parliament will be elected according to the usual model.
Given the general underdevelopment of the party system, it is not surprising that there are few party members among the deputies of the current convocation. But most of them belong to the nomenklatura party. They moved to parliamentary seats from the seats of officials and top managers of state-owned enterprises. And this majority consists mainly of the public association “Belaya Rus”. This is the embryo of the party in power, which has been an embryo for so long that it may no longer become a party. At least so far all talk about this has ended in nothing. And its reputation is ambiguous - there is too much concentration of officials, too much formalism and too little ideological specificity, except for the notorious “vacillation along with the general line,” for which the president himself acts as a guide.
There is also the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, the Belarusian Republican Youth Union - this is the younger brother of “Belaya Rus”, which well fulfills only one role - a social elevator for young careerists into adulthood.
Of the political parties themselves, the liberal democrats, communists, Patriotic Party, Republican Party of Labor and Justice, as well as non-system opposition liberal Anna Kanopatskaya from the United Civil Party are represented in parliament.
I may have forgotten someone, but there are parties in the country, the existence of which an ordinary voter can find out only by reading the biographical information about the candidate at the polling station. In fact, they represent the same “party of nomenclature”.
The Patriotic Party is also one of these, but has a recognizable leader - the leader of the Belarusian Cossacks Nikolai Ulakhovich, who participated in the 2016 presidential elections.
The communists from the pro-government Communist Party of Belarus are essentially the same nomenklatura, demonstrating loyalty to the authorities even when real ideological communists would howl. At the same time, there are enough such ideological communists in the party, but, alas, they are not allowed into the leadership.
There is another communist party - “Fair World”. She has always been in opposition to Lukashenko, but at one time she made many mistakes, collaborating with right-wing pro-Western liberals and nationalists. There are serious differences in the party on foreign policy - there are both pro-Western and pro-Russian leaders, although the course towards Moscow was approved as the official position of the party at the recent congress. The chances of getting into parliament are minimal.
The Republican Party of Labor and Justice also tries to demonstrate loyalty, but it is an independent left party, close to A Just Russia.
The most interesting of the parliamentary parties is the Liberal Democratic Party. When compared with Russian political cuisine, it occupies approximately the same place as the Liberal Democratic Party. Moreover, it is already known that on the eve of the elections the party will renew its leadership, and the experienced, but not so noticeable in the public space Sergei Gaidukevich will be replaced by his son Oleg, the owner of bright charisma and a regular on all political TV shows in Belarus.
The last two parties can be considered the most pro-Russian. Thus, the leader of the RPTS Vasily Zadnepryany even recognized the Russian status of Crimea.
However, there are no strong pro-Russian organized forces independent of the authorities in Belarus. Here are questions for Russia itself, which over the past 25 years has taken virtually nothing not only to neutralize the influence of Western “well-wishers” on Belarusian politics, but has not created any structures capable of competing with agents of Western influence.
Now let's look at the pro-Western opposition. In Belarus it is represented by a number of small and, as a rule, poor nationalist, liberal (with a strong nationalist bias) and even social democratic (also not without nationalist fads). A sharp shift towards nationalist populism began after 2014, when Russophobia became a prerequisite for foreign sponsors.
Of all the politicians of this kind, two are represented in parliament - a member of the liberal United Civil Party Anna Kanopatskaya, and an ardent nationalist Elena Anisim, who heads the “Belarusian Language Society” and earned her political capital by promoting the “protection of the Belarusian language”, which for her is necessarily associated with discrimination against Russian speakers . She became famous, in particular, for equating the Belarusian partisans with Basayev’s bandits. By the way, Anisim has already announced her intention to run for president. And, most likely, he will run for office.
Both opposition deputies are convenient for the authorities. They do not have a serious influence on decision-making, but they perfectly demonstrate to the West the steps to democratize Belarusian politics, and to Russia - the non-negotiable Belarusian oppositionists, with whom, if something happens, they will have to deal.
Kanopatskaya can run for a new term, but Anisim’s chances are still illusory. After what she said, any of her competitors just need to show voters the candidate’s quotation book to reset her rating.
But several of her colleagues may well take Anisim’s place. The authorities can even play along with such oppositionists by fielding several candidates per district in order to “spread” the votes.
The opposition has already begun to prepare, to fight for the dwindling Western cash flow and the leniency of the authorities at the same time. It got to the point that the chairman of the Belarusian Popular Front party, Grigory Kostusev, unexpectedly appeared at the gay pride parade in Vilnius. The party, which is generally very conservative in such matters, reacted to such a step without understanding. But “Uncle Rygor” increased his chances of becoming a deputy. To some he demonstrated his commitment to “European values”, while to others he demonstrated a game of giveaway, a move into an obviously losing political field.
This time, the Belarusian parliamentary elections promise to be unusually emotional and interesting - after all, whoever wins in the first round of the “political bacchanalia” can receive noticeable bonuses in the future, when the role of parties can noticeably grow, and the party system itself will be redrawn.
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