Belarusian political emigrants are preparing to tear Tikhanovskaya’s legacy to pieces
Only about a third of the year has passed, and more initiatives have been announced to create political parties in Belarus than in the last 20 years. The initiatives are very different and have different chances of eventually becoming a party. Another one appeared today.
Pavel Latushko, the director (now former) of the oldest Kupala Theater in Minsk, who supported opposition protests last August, announced plans to create his own party. It does not yet have a name, and Latushko is not even going to submit documents for official registration with the Ministry of Justice until “political and legal conditions appear in the country.”
He calls party building a proactive game in order to be able to fill the political vacuum that will form after Lukashenko’s departure and “participate in the construction of a new Belarus.”
Latushko is a Belarusian nationalist. Actually, he did not particularly hide this, either as Minister of Culture or as Ambassador to France. There are plenty of such systemic nationalists in the Belarusian nomenklatura even now, but having fallen into disgrace and promoted to the position of theater director, Latushko did not remain loyal to Lukashenko, but decided to go for broke and support the opposition. The bet, as we know, did not work out, his ambitions have not gone away, so now he is preparing to play the long game.
After the failed mass protests on March 25 and 27, the processes of structuring the Belarusian political emigration sharply accelerated. Even before, it was far from homogeneous. It clearly identified at least three competing and only formally interconnected centers - Tikhanovskaya’s headquarters, with all affiliated structures and funds, the People’s Anti-Crisis Management headed by Latushko, and a group of supporters of Viktor Babariko.
There are also smaller groups and individual politicians with their own interests. The same Olga Karach is now actively playing some kind of game of her own and began to “drown” Tikhanovskaya when it was not yet mainstream. Now it has almost become mainstream.
Babariko’s supporters were the first to announce their departure for freedom, already on the first working day after the failed protests, declaring plans to create their own party called “Together”. The ex-banker himself had such plans even before the presidential elections; they were voiced in his circle, but were postponed after accusations of splitting the protest.
In the fall, when Tikhanovskaya was made a symbol of protest, it was perceived as a kind of separatism. Now many already perceive Tikhanovskaya as a symbol of a merged protest, and the day is not far when this opinion will become predominant in the opposition.
Latushko was the second to escape Tikhanovskaya’s sinking ship. The timing for this was also interesting - the day after Tikhanovskaya’s adviser on international politics, Frantisek Vecherko, announced the details of a widely publicized plan according to which she was going to force the regime first to negotiate and then to capitulate.
The plan turned out to be naive and short-term - the opposition does not have any leverage to begin such negotiations with Lukashenko in May, not to mention achieving the implementation of the agreements reached.
This is generally typical for Tikhanovskaya and her entourage - loud and threatening statements at the entrance and nothing at the exit. This happened more than once, starting with the “ultimatum” on October 26 and ending with the failed “Freedom Day” on March 25. After May ends and negotiations do not begin, she will no longer be taken seriously at all.
Not only Belarusians are disappointed in Tikhanovskaya and her boastful but ineffective entourage (this entourage will survive their disappointment without problems), but also Western patrons. And numerous corruption scandals surrounding Tikhanovskaya, her “wallet” Andrei Strizhak and adviser Frantisek Vecherko greatly contribute to this disappointment.
The fight for “Tikhanouskaya’s legacy” is just around the corner, and the leaders of the new wave of Belarusian political emigration are beginning to prepare for it. The words about “working ahead” and “filling the political vacuum” are exactly about this.
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