ANALYSIS

Lessons from two elections: Ukraine and Belarus

by Alex Campbell
RFE/RL Newsline

With the inexorable advance of NATO and the European Union to the East, the idea of working out some coordinated policy in the West's dealings with Ukraine and Belarus is starting to gain currency in the upper echelons of European bureaucracy.

The rationale is that since these former Soviet republics are experiencing similar difficulties in carrying out political and economic reforms, a unified approach by Brussels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will help them achieve the success shared by many of their post-Communist neighbors.

The problem with this reasoning is that, despite some similarities shared by countries making the transition from communism to democracy, the situations in Ukraine and Belarus are vastly different. Despite many obvious setbacks, political and economic reforms are slowly beginning to take root in Ukraine, while in Belarus this process has actually reversed and resulted in the re-establishment in that country of an authoritarian regime that is disturbingly reminiscent of the worst periods of the Soviet era.

The divergent directions of these two former Soviet republics are best evidenced by their recent elections. The fraud that allowed Alyaksandr Lukashenka to claim victory in last September's presidential elections in Belarus did not come as a surprise. The OCSE-led body of international observers declared the election neither free nor fair and said it was conducted in an undemocratic atmosphere.

Those familiar with the situation in Belarus could hardly expect anything different in an election game in which President Lukashenka stacked his hand heavily with cards like the ruthless harassment of political opponents and total control over the election apparatus and the mass media. He took no chances and, in the event that these measures would not be enough, he allowed the ballot-box stuffing to begin five days before election day and disqualified almost all the local independent observers.

If all else were to fail, Mr. Lukashenka even threatened to resort to the brute force of his most trusted paramilitary troops, which the opposition claims had already proven their loyalty by physically eliminating some of Mr. Lukashenka's most prominent political opponents.

Predictably, merely an hour after the polls closed and in violation of the election rules he himself had carefully doctored in his favor, President Lukashenka went on national television to proclaim his "convincing victory." Even taking into account Mr. Lukashenka's popularity among the elderly and the uneducated, it is difficult to believe that his level of support among the impoverished Belarusian population stood at nearly 80 percent, as the preliminary official report claimed.

Also disturbing is the relative complacency with which the OSCE is watching gradual elimination of its own Miensk Advisory and Monitoring Group, established, among other things, for the purpose of ensuring that the elections in Belarus are democratic, fair and transparent.

German diplomat Hans-Georg Wieck, the former head of the group, left the country in January amid a very public scandal over the authorities' allegations that he conspired with the opposition to overthrow the government and was engaged in intelligence gathering for the German secret services. His deputy, French diplomat Michel Rivollier, was forced to leave Belarus as soon as his visa expired. Miensk still refuses to accept the credentials of the newly appointed head of the Miensk Advisory and Monitoring Group, demanding, in violation of the OSCE's Istanbul summit agreements, the complete revision of the mission's mandate.

On the surface, the March 31 parliamentary elections in Ukraine provide many comparisons between the two countries. According to independent observers, the Ukrainian election was fraught with violations resulting from poor organization and financing, but also with widespread interference by pro-government forces. Observers noted that district electoral commissions were often understaffed, the polling stations poorly equipped, and the ballot papers too confusing (along with Verkhovna Rada deputies, Ukrainians were electing local authorities). Sometimes long lines at polling stations discouraged people from voting, which favored older and more disciplined pro-government and Com-munist electorates and worked against younger supporters of the reform-oriented Our Ukraine bloc.

Using election techniques similar to those employed by Mr. Lukashenka, Ukrainian authorities allowed large numbers of people to vote outside the constituencies where they had originally been registered. This legal trick was especially widely used by candidates of pro-government forces who bused people in - sometimes even from other regions - to swing the vote in their constituencies.

Still, in contrast to the Belarusian presidential elections, observers representing European organizations came to the conclusion that the Ukrainian elections were generally free and fair. However, although the U.S. State Department criticized Kyiv for media bias and international commentators noted that "most media failed to provide impartial and fair coverage of the campaign," one crucial difference between the Ukrainian and Belarusian elections is impossible to ignore. In Ukraine, organized debates, free airtime and paid advertising allowed all candidates at least some access to television and other media based in Kyiv. Even though the situation outside of Kyiv was worse, with access to electronic media often restricted by local authorities, this stands in stark contrast to the complete media blackout of the opposition that was organized by the Belarusian regime.

Another important difference is that last year, for the first time in its history, Ukraine passed an election law guaranteeing representation to different political parties on district electoral commissions. By March 24 some 944 foreign election observers were registered - the highest number seen since the country's independence in 1991. In the Belarusian campaign, the presidential administration exerted total control over every stage and level of the voting and vote-tallying, and Central Election Commission chair Lidiya Yermoshina even went on record saying that Mr. Lukashenka's loss in the election would be nothing less than a personal tragedy for her.

It is true that prior to the elections in Ukraine opposition rallies encountered power blackouts suspiciously often, but it is still a far cry from the brutality with which President Lukashenka's police apparatus attacked its opponents, and which put Belarus in a league of its own among other post-Soviet states. The senseless violence with which the Belarusian regime for years dealt with the participants of opposition's peaceful manifestations is well documented by international human rights organizations and was sharply criticized by the democratic community of countries.

All these differences added up to making the recent elections in Ukraine and Belarus major turning points. In Ukraine, for the first time since independence, Communists will be only a negligible minority in the country's new Parliament. In Belarus, Mr. Lukashenka's neo-Stalinist regime has basically completed the total takeover of all the institutions of democracy and civil society.

The Euro-Atlantic community's decision-makers, trying today to work out policies with regard to these two countries, which dominate the still very volatile region between Russia and the rest of Europe, would be wise to remember these points.

Alex Campbell is an analyst of Belarusian affairs.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 9, 2002, No. 23, Vol. LXX

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