All-Belarusian meeting may provoke a hot spring
I recently wrote an article here about the “hibernation” of Belarusian protests. Now we can state that this assumption has been completely confirmed. Those “chains of solidarity” of 10-20 people that we saw on December 20 against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of August marches look simply indecent.
After the obviously failed actions of December 20, when the protesters were unable to even make a picture for the media with any noticeable crowd, this was admitted even in Tikhanovskaya’s office. Speaking on the air of the Russian Dozhd, adviser to “President Sveta” Frantisek Vecherko said that mass actions should “stop a little,” giving way to flash mobs, small outings, and hanging flags. In general, to paraphrase a bearded joke, we got to the mice.
Of course, the protests will not stop completely, the opposition is unlikely to resist the temptation to organize something creative and hooligan, taking advantage of the Christmas and New Year holidays and the nationwide hangover, but this will not change the weather. Overall, the winter is likely to be relatively quiet.
It would seem that the protests were suppressed, the unprecedentedly harsh actions of the security forces, the coronavirus and bad weather did their job, driving the protesters home. But why then does the regime not celebrate victory, but prepare for the worst?
Speaking to the “Grodno-Azot” team, the chairman of the Belarusian KGB, Ivan Tertel, spoke about spring, for which the Committee is preparing and will act harshly, about a “difficult period” of 1,5 - 2 years, and even about the possibility of a hot war under the guise of a humanitarian mission.
If the protests are “blown away,” why such pessimism in the forecasts? These are hardly empty words. Tertel is not the kind of person who just needs to scare ordinary people. On the contrary, it is in the interests of the authorities to talk about the final victory over the attempt at a “color revolution”, demoralizing opponents. It is better to take his words seriously, as the result of an analysis of the situation in the country by the special service.
However, in a situation where protests have been largely suppressed or have faded away, there must be something that will provoke a new wave of protests, if not more massive, then more radical. In his speech, Tertel spoke about problems in the economy and outside influence. But the economic crisis is unlikely to be immediate and, accordingly, cannot lead to a sharp surge in the number of dissatisfied people.
External pressure, of course, will only increase, but it is also incapable of bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters onto the streets again or organizing mass violence. Massive and radical protests can only be a response to the actions of the authorities, which are even more unacceptable than the elections of August 9 and everything that happened after them.
And such actions of the authorities can only be an extravagant constitutional reform with an attempt to make the All-Belarusian Assembly a constitutional body and transfer to it most of the presidential powers. It seems that now Alexander Lukashenko has made his main bet on precisely this scenario, and in the future he sees himself in the role of the all-powerful Secretary General of the All-Belarusian Assembly, freed from the unpleasant need to periodically confirm his right to power in some kind of popular election.
And, despite the intense propaganda pumping about veche traditions and the “highest form of democracy”, the population is unlikely to like such a redrawing of the Constitution.
The All-Belarusian Assembly, although it has existed for the third decade and is meeting for the sixth time, is not at all taken seriously by the majority of Belarusians. It has always been a propaganda extras, designed to give the green light to Lukashenko’s next re-election and his next initiatives. The Belarusian authorities tried to copy the CPSU Congress, but without the CPSU itself, the attempt was obviously a failure.
Soviet congresses and general secretaries had internal legitimacy based on the authority of communist ideology and the “leading and guiding role” of the CPSU itself. There is neither a party nor, in general, an ideology here. Do not consider as such the loyal patriotism cultivated by propaganda, which puts at the forefront not the state itself, but its leader.
The election of delegates to the All-Belarusian Assembly is a separate issue. They are elected according to a complex and completely opaque scheme from labor collectives, public organizations, official trade unions, etc. At the same time, not everyone has the opportunity to vote for their delegate; the principle of “one person, one vote” is out of the question, and it is not possible to somehow control the integrity of the elections.
As long as this body was a propaganda profanation of democracy, no one, by and large, gave a damn about it. But an attempt to make it a central element of the entire state structure of Belarus is capable of blowing up society more powerfully than the August elections. Actually, the authorities are preparing for this explosion.
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