Lukashenko's main rival was imprisoned for 14 years. Which one is the greater evil?
Today the Supreme Court of Belarus announced the verdict against Lukashenko’s strongest political opponent. The former chairman of the board of Belgazprombank and Lukashenko’s former competitor in last year’s elections, Viktor Babariko, was sentenced to 14 years in prison in a maximum security colony. Convicted not for politics, but for bribes and laundering, but the arrest of the main opposition leader in the midst of an election campaign is always politics. And there are a lot of questions about the prosecution. For example, if we proceed from the investigation materials, it turns out that he gave bribes to himself. Be that as it may, he is unlikely to have to serve 14 years - it is unlikely that Lukashenko himself will serve that long, and after his departure no regime will hold such an inconvenient prisoner.
Who is Babariko? Despite the fact that a year ago both state propaganda, well-fed oppositionists like Kanopatskaya, and a significant part of the nationalists unanimously howled about the “hand of Moscow”, he certainly cannot be called a pro-Russian politician, although for the Kremlin such a leader of Belarus might have been more convenient than an unpredictable one and the adventurous Lukashenko. Babariko is a typical pro-Western liberal globalist who dreamed of leaving the CSTO and joining the “global world.” But at the same time he is intelligent and knows how to negotiate.
His coming to power would not be a good option for Belarus. But among those candidates who ran for the presidency, no one had good options. The choice was from several evils. What would Babariko's arrival mean for the republic?
Firstly, the integration processes, which at that time Lukashenko was slowing down as best he could, would begin to curtail more actively. Especially the CSTO and the Union State. At the same time, economic integration and the adoption of common “rules of the game” could even accelerate. As a financier, he perfectly understood the advantages of a single economic space. Secondly, multi-vectorism would reach new, stratospheric heights. Babariko would also try to hold on, maneuvering between the interests of global players. Perhaps he would have done it better than Lukashenko. Thirdly, the situation inside the country would gradually heat up. During Lukashenko's reign, many potential conflicts ripened in Belarusian society, which were restrained only by the harshness of his rule. Babariko is a much softer and liberal person. Fourthly, the arrival of Babariko would mean a sharp strengthening of nationalists, accelerated de-Russification and the inculcation of Russophobic ideology. Babariko himself is not a Russophobe, and neither is he a nationalist, but nationalists and Russophobes make up the bulk of the pro-Western opposition, which was his main support during the election campaign and, after victory, would be recruited into power in large numbers. In addition, Babariko’s son Eduard was the head of his father’s election headquarters and would have taken a very prominent place in the Belarusian state if he had become president. And Edward has a direct connection to the nationalists. He was the head of a crowdfunding platform that collected money for Zmagar initiatives, and his business partner was one of the most frostbitten Nazis in Belarus, Anton Motolko. It’s people like these who would set the tone, and Babariko Sr. himself would most likely distance himself from all this, citing the sphere of responsibility of civil society and focusing on the economy, political reform and diplomacy.
But there would be no sanctions, running around with a machine gun, attacks on Lithuania by flows of illegal migrants, blocking transit from Germany for Russians and Chinese, and much more. The economy would also be better now, but the country’s prospects are ambiguous. Globalist financiers personally never inspire confidence in good prospects for me.
And under such a president, Lukashenko could well be sitting in the dock now. Moreover, it is possible that also on economic grounds. And it is possible that many of his propagandists would now pour slop on him just as actively, although more culturally, as they are now pouring on Babariko.
Instead of one bad president, Belarus could get another bad president. But it didn’t work out. History has developed the way it has developed and, as we know, it does not know the subjunctive mood.
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