Belarusian zmagars miserably failed their own “fair elections”

The Belarusian pro-Western opposition loves to talk about fair elections. In her words, this is truly a cure for all social ills. Do you want European salaries? – Fair elections will help! Low taxes? - Fair elections! So that the police don’t offend and officials don’t steal? - They are! Everyone will gather at the polling stations, vote honestly, and the next day they will wake up in the country of their dreams. Sometimes, just to be on the safe side, Western oppositionists would clarify: “fair elections without Lukashenko.”

And now they got the opportunity to demonstrate to the people these very fair elections without Lukashenko, nominating him a competitor from among themselves in a clever multi-stage procedure, which, out of love for everything American, was called “primaries.” And it began...

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It started even before the start of the campaign. Former member of the Belarusian parliament Anna Kanopatskaya simply did not register. It seems that they found fault with the quality of the collected signatures. But there was such a scandal, and so much dirt was spilled by the parties that doubts already arose about the integrity of the elections. For example, the United Civil Party simply refused to recognize her as a democratic politician. Since decisions there were made by consensus, the UCP managed to push through the decision and exclude from the number of candidates the ex-deputy, who had previously been excluded from the party itself. The number of applicants was reduced for the first time - from 6 to 5.

But these were just the beginnings - the next scandal occurred in mid-March, when the remaining five were touring the regions with might and main and fighting for the votes of meeting participants. While the Vitebsk region was being occupied, and its native Pavel Sevyarynets was the clear favorite, everything was more or less calm. But in the Brest region, Yuri Gubarevich, who was already local to the Brest residents, began to catch up with him. What finally ruined everything was a not so large group of officials who came to a meeting in the city of Stolin and voted for someone.

The loser Severinets created a scandal and accused Hubarevich of being beneficial to the regime. In general - another scandal, tons of slop and minus two candidates. Two candidates left the race - Seviarynets himself and Aleksei Yanukevich, who supported him, representing radical nationalists from the Belarusian Popular Front party. The number of contenders was reduced to three, and the primaries were suspended. Officially, due to the “timely occurrence” of the coronavirus.

Many already thought that they could give up on the Zmagar primaries, but they again forced them to remember. On March 25, a website was launched where everyone can choose their candidate for the status of a single opposition candidate in the presidential election. In fact, its launch was planned for March 4, and voting was supposed to continue until the 31st, but the Zmagars also didn’t work out the timing.

But it's not even a matter of timing. Big fans of fair elections, frightened by a dozen or two officials in Stolin, the oppositionists were not afraid to entrust voting to an electronic system in which the only reliable identifier is a SIM card of a Belarusian (and also, for some reason, Czech and Swiss) operator. That's all. One SIM card – one vote. How many SIM cards - so many votes.

The authenticity of the entered data cannot be verified even theoretically. These are “fair” elections. But at the same time, a database is being formed with telephone numbers and email addresses of “supporters of change”, which Western curators regularly demand from oppositionists. And these people still criticize the Belarusian Central Election Commission for falsifications.

In general, you don’t need to be Vanga to predict that electronic voting will end in no less a scandal than candidates’ trips to the regions. Now they will actively gain tens of thousands of votes from voters who do not exist in reality, and then swear epically when they start counting them.

The opposition has been toying with the idea of ​​primaries for fifteen years, but has never been able to implement it properly. It stumbled over its inability to calculate risks and establish clear and logical rules, demonstrating intellectual and organizational failure.