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POLITICAL PARTIES: FROM PARTICIPATION IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TO BOYCOTTING PARLIAMENTARY ONES
Yury Chavusau
Summary
The importance of 2011 for political parties was determined by the political calendar: no election campaigns were held this year and the party activity concentrated mostly either on the analysis of the results of the previous presidential elections or on preparation for elections in the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the fifth convocation which is to take place no later than in September, 2012. These factors determined the character of the agenda within the opposition as well as its reaction to in domestic and foreign policies.
The basic points of this agenda concern: a) the questions of pressure of external actors on the Belarusian regime (visa restrictions for certain functionaries of the state machinery and businessmen who cooperate with the regime, freezing of assets, possible economic sanctions); b) assessment of prospects of overthrow of the regime by means of street protests (including the analysis of the reasons of fiasco on the "Square" during the last presidential elections); c) struggle for release of the political prisoners; d) the attitude to the question of the dialogue or negotiations with the regime; e) development of the strategy for the next parliamentary elections.
The systemic financial and economic crisis that overtook the Belarusian national economy in 2011 was used by oppositional politicians as an occasion to criticize the regime but it did not become a new opportunity for the opposition. At the same time in a number of parties there were inner reshuffles connected with learning the results of the presidential elections.
Trends:
• Repressions after the presidential election of 2010 undermined the infrastructural possibilities of the opposition;
• Political parties were in a state of shock during the first half of 2011 and could not trigger any active political projects;
• Reaction to the deterioration of political activity was the activation of foreign-policy pressure on the Belarusian regime from almost all political structures of the opposition;
• On the eve of the parliamentary elections campaign the dominant attitude of the parties to it is instrumental;
• There are signs of integration processes, in particular in comparison with the period of disintegration during the presidential elections.
The configuration of oppositional parties will be defined by the above described tendencies. On the one hand the campaign for boycotting the elections basically comes from illegal political structures (including the organizing committees of non-registered political parties). On the other hand the interest to preserve the room for legal political activity unites the registered parties because they consider future elections as means to strengthen their structures and keep the legal status of opposition in Belarus.
Learning the results of the presidential campaign
During the previous election campaign oppositional political parties managed to keep their own subjectivity also by means of tactical unity in the election campaign. The wave of repressions after the elections in many respects predetermined a sharp drop of all forms of political activity. The economic crisis which burst out in the spring of 2011 became a new stage of the development of political life in Belarus: it was this very event rather than political lawsuits that became the symbolical end of the "after elections" stage and the beginning of the period of political activity during the economic crisis and escalation of repressions. But the opposition met this challenge in a broken state. During this period the development of the oppositional political parties is characterized by some apathy and inability to use the electoral disappointment in the power and its leader which obviously seized the minds of the Belarusians. Weakened by repressions and scandals exaggerated by the mass-media, the parties continued to exist in a mode of "renewal of forces after elections". In spite of the fact that the masses were ready to support a political alternative, the majority of political parties concentrated on preparation for future campaigns, strategic planning and lobbying of certain strategies of external pressure.
Loss of strategic benchmarks
After the presidential election of 2010 a large part of the civil community (both non-governmental organizations and political parties) found themselves in a situation of strategic uncertainty. For political parties under the conditions of tens of political prisoners (including candidates for the presidency) and escalation of all forms of political repressions (arrests and searches, pressure upon acti-
vists at their work, threats to liquidate newspapers and prosecution of journalists, strengthening of control over information on the Internet) the very possibility of political activity of oppositional organizations as legal ones was endangered. Those associations that during a relative thaw got used to certain freedom of activity felt the need in radical revision of their plans and tactical targets: many of them had already had prepared strategies of activity with due regard for the "liberal" atmosphere of the Belarusian-European dialogue and had to reconsider them radically after the approach of new "political winter". Thus the beginning of 2011 became the time of loss of benchmarks and catastrophic narrowing of the horizon of planning for the oppositional organizations (for example, at the time of daily arrests at the beginning of year the majority of structures could not plan any serious activity for more than one month). Both political and public structures concentrated on the question of protection of political prisoners — a noble and important activity but obviously not sufficient for a political strategy1. In this sense the whole Belarusian opposition re-trained for human rights activists in 2011, while human rights activists began to influence the events in Belarus considerably, even more than politicians. However against the background of such a strategic uncertainty in February-April some political subjects declared the strategy for activity of civil community. The group "European Belarus", connected with the political coalition of Andrei Sannikau, a candidate for the presidency, and personified by Victor Ivashkievich and a number of persons of new emigration, declared the necessity to intensify internal and external pressure on the regime, also by means of inspiration of social-economic indignation of the population through sanctions and isolation of the country. Though publicly the main objective of such pressure was the release of political prisoners, supporters of this approach did not hide their desire to bring down the regime by sanctions.
The second group connected with the national platform of the Forum of Civil Community "Eastern Partnership" and with consortia "Eurobelarus" declared the necessity to normalize the situation in the country through a dialogue between conflicting political groups. This group made it a condition for the dialogue that political prisoners should be released and its purpose was to achieve
Chausov Y. Hostages of the Square // Our Opinion [Electronic resource]: http://nmnby.eu/news/analytics/3876.html.
reconciliation and a mutual recognition of opposite forces in the Belarusian nation through carrying out parliamentary elections in autumn 2012 (and as for the foreign-policy markets to return the situation to the state before the presidential election). It should be noted that neither of the approaches was favored among the officially registered parties, although a number of subjects did identify themselves with certain positions (for example, the grouping Be-laruski Rukh (Belarusian movement) that split off from the Belarusian National Front Party (the BNFP) in February adopted the stand of tough pressure on the regime to demonstrate its own identity in relation to the parent organization). It seems that the principal cause of failure of all strategies was the fact that the main political parties of the Belarusian opposition hesitated and preferred the eclectic combination of elements of both approaches (the United Civic Party (UCP), the BNFP, the Party of the Left "Fair World" (PLFW), "For Freedom" movement, etc.). Henceforth this narrow corporative interest of legal oppositional parties became the dominant motivation for the choice of the opposition's actions.
Legal conditions for activity
Throughout 2011 the factor of escalating repressions was of great importance for political parties. The pressure was both on separate members of the parties and on the organizations as a whole. The BNFP had to change its headquarters twice during the year (and as a result its legal address). Since December 2010 the authorities started the process of eviction of the BNFP from the apartment that served as the headquarters for almost 20 years. In this room activists organized the center of gathering help for those who suffered during mass repressions after the presidential election, which became the basis for eviction. On May 10, 2011 Minsk Economic court made a decision to move the BNFP from the capital office in Masherava Avenue, 8. In June after the attempt of appeal procedure the decision on eviction became a valid judgment.
According to the BNFP, the owners of other premises who wanted to help and let flats to the party, faced threats from executive power and special services. After seven months of judicial lawsuits, on July 25, 2011 the party had to leave the former office and to move to a less convenient private apartment. In 2011 the party had to move once again because the authorities got on the proprietor of the rented apartment and he canceled the lease agreement.
The Belarusian Christian Democrats (the BCD Party) held on December 17, 2011 its next constituent congress. It was the fourth attempt to legalize this Christian-democratic party in Belarus however the authorities again refused it. Within a year the congresses were held by the Party of the Left "Fair World", Conservative-Christian Party of the BNFP, the BNFP (it is interesting to note that at the congress where Aliaksei Yanukevich was reelected a chairperson, the limit on the term in office was introduced).
In October the House of Representatives adopted a change in laws on political parties, on public associations, and also in the Criminal Code (further the bill was adopted by the Council of the Republic). These changes imposed new restrictions on getting financing from abroad by all subjects (both parties or public organizations and citizens)2. But the most essential here is that changes provide criminal responsibility for violations in this sphere — two years of imprisonment.
Coalition processes in political opposition
During the interelection period the opposition concentrated on the struggle for release of political prisoners, which was basically understood as attracting attention of the international community and consulting for foreign actors. It was also the time of coalition shifts in opposition. If to compare with the period of disintegration of the time of the presidential election, one could notice a certain evolution in the opposition. Right after the collapse on December 19, 2010 National Coordination Council of Democratic Opposition3 was created. Its declaration of January 9, 2011 said that a new formation would seek "release of the arrested on political motives, informing of Belarusian citizens and the international community, returning of Belarus to a legal and democratic way". Also there was a task to create the conditions for free and democratic elections in the country. Almost all oppositional organizations and authoritative politicians jointed the structure. As a matter of fact this coalition should have become the only subject ready to act as a united opposition. However shortly after its foundation, in connection with the above mentioned strategic contradictions the coalition faced polarization.
See: http://www.euramost.org/?artc = 15016.
See: http://spring96.org/ru/news/40699; http://www.ucpb.org/news/party-news/62693-2011-01-11-1135.
The additional factor was that political parties and the structured public organizations felt themselves uncomfortable on the same field with the network organizations and single politicians. As a result the council soon ceased to exist though there was no formal dissolution of the structure and from time to time one could hear the statements about the necessity to revive it. At the same time the so-called "Six" — an association of four parties (the BNFP, the UCP, the BCD Party, PLFW) and two public associations ("Tell the truth!" and "For freedom" movement) started its work. This formation declared the intention to create a unique long-term strategy, and the parties reached consensus on key tactical problems. It seems that based on a steady mechanism of decision-making this coalition will be able to act as a unique subject during the upcoming parliamentary elections and to become a gravitational centre for consolidation of opposition. To a certain extent the ideological antagonist of this group is the campaign of boycotting the parliamentary elections, but it is quite unstructured and cannot be called a coalition formation. Those political subjects, who do not enter the coalition processes, have already defined their position concerning the future parliamentary elections. The CCP of the BNFP as usual declared their intention to boycott the elections while liberal democrats are going to nominate as many candidates as possible.
The transformation of the public association Belaya Rus (White Russia) into a propresidential "constructive" party was not realized in 2011: though delegates for the constituent congress were nominated by primary communities it did not take place. All other coalition formations (Belarusian Independent Block, the UDP, "European coalition", "Belarusian choice") practically ceased their existence as public subjects. Except for the questions concerning the elections and the division of the organizations into structured ("Six"), non-registered and network groups ("European Belarus", some emigrant circles), the opposition faces one more crucial question connected with the means of pressure on the regime, i.e. a combination of economic sanctions and street protest actions. If with the deterioration of the economic situation the question of sanctions went into the sphere of non-public policy ("only a self-murderer under the conditions of economic crisis can ask to introduce embargo against his/her own country") the question of street actions is discussed as a main one and it defines interactions among oppo-sitional parties. After the events of December 19, 2010 the authorities stopped the oppositional mass actions in a very tough way.
Against this background the mass actions of silent protests organized through social networks and actions as "stop petrol" against the rise of petrol prices were a big surprise. They attracted big numbers and were geographically widely scattered throughout the country, were positively received by the press and caused an explosion of public interest in the capital outside the limits of a traditional oppositional community. In this situation a non-structured group of opposition ("European Belarus" and some other non-registered organizations) initiated the campaign "National Meeting". It did not gain many participants and will be remembered by infighting among participaring politicians.
Concentration in everyday life
It should be noted that oppositional meetings usually pass in a form of traditional bureaucratic games and a competition for resources on the eve of the future election campaign or boycott. Each party is engaged in solving its own problems and defines its stand concerning the future parliamentary elections as the point that determines the activity of the party. Certainly, parties pay a lot of attention to the solutions of current problems and to the question how to survive in today's difficult conditions. For example, for the BSD Party a matter of life and death was the conflict with the former chairman of the party Liaukovich who was dismissed from his office in 20104. The ex-leader did not recognize his defeat and still enjoys certain support from the Ministry of Justice which deemed two new congresses of this party illegitimate and will apparently define its further destiny. The BNFP experienced a withdrawal of a part of authoritative party members in February 2011. The UCP made a lot of efforts to get rid of a negative shade that had been thrown on the organization as a result of Yaraslau Ramanchuk's (a candidate for the presidency) statements in which he accused other oppositional leaders of the defeat on December 19. Eventually this party showed an example of a civilized way how to solve disputes and Yaraslau Ramanchuk left this party at his own request (the international secretary of the Party Andrei Dzmitryeu was dismissed from his office one year after the presidential election because he had collaborated with the campaign "Tell the truth!").
4 http://www.belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?news = 75449&page = 102&locale = be.
Conclusion and forecast
The inter-election period is the time for inner-party building, accumulation of resources and creation of new coalition formations. Therefore for today's state of the political parties their inner and coalition processes are more crucial than a rush for power: a number of parties during the presidential election of 2010 did let the non-party movements of Sannikau and Niakliaeu move them aside out of the oppositional field, and they were satisfied with these election results. At the same time a sharp deterioration of the economic situation and increase of protest moods in society became an unexpected call for all opposition parties that try confining themselves to rhetorical and symbolical answers to this call. Meanwhile the opposition parties act in an existing political system as "extra-parliamentary opposition" and execute the function of the symbolical internal enemy. It seems that in today's system the political parties can only articulate alternatives rather than aggregate political interests.
