Belarus: Learning from defeat

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 17, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 138-152

  Silitski, Vitali ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750981536     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2006.0073     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. On various aspects of preemptive authoritarianisra, see Vitali Silitski, "Pre-empting Democracy: The Case of Belarus," Journal of Democracy 16 (October 2005): 83-97
2. Carl Gershman and Michael Allen, "The Assault on Democracy Assistance," Journal of Democracy 17 (April 2006): 36-51;
3. and Ivan Krastev, "Democracy's Doubles," Journal of Democracy 17 (April 2006): 52-62.
4. For a detailed analysis of the 2004 constitutional referendum, see the section on Belarus in Nations in Transit, 2005: Democratization from Central Europe to Eurasia (New York: Freedom House, 2006).
5. A review of the most notorious such report, "Colored Revolutions on Post-Soviet Space: Scenarios for Belarus," can be read in Russian at www.belgazeta.by/20051212.49/010030141.
6. Charter-97 News Service, "Interior Troops Will Fulfill Any Tyrant's Order," 1 February 2005, www.charter97.org/bel/news/2005/02/01/prikaz.
7. Charter-97 News Service, "Almost 300 Party Structures Have Been Liquidated in Belarus in 2005," www.charter97.org/bel/news/2005/09/15/ likvid.
8. The name IISEPS is an acronym for the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies in Minsk. See Charter-97 News Service, "Supreme Court of Belarus Liquidated the Largest Sociological Institute," www.charter97.org/bel/news/2005/04/15/zamana.
9. See the analysis of the amendments to the Criminal Code in "Security Bill To Criminalize Round of Opposition Activities," RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova Report, December 2005, www.rferl.org/reports/pbureport/ 2005/12/41-081205.asp
10. See David Marples, "Official Minsk Is Preparing for the Coup," Eurasia Daily Monitor, 17 March 2006, www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php? article_id=2370883.
11. See "Can Opposition Unite to Challenge Lukashenka?" RFE/RL Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova Report, 4 October 2005, www.rferl.org/reports/ pbureport/2005/10/35-041005.asp.
12. Lukashenka's camp claimed that it had collected 1.9 million signatures backing his candidacy, but many of these were gathered at workplaces or on campuses in a fashion that can only be called compulsory. For official signature data, see http://rec.gov.by/elect/prrb2006/itog_podpisi.html.
13. Official data on the composition of local election commissions comes from http://rec.gov.by/elect/prrb2006/itog_divisional.html.
14. The use of repression during the campaign is documented in the OSCE observation mission's report at www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2006/06/19393_en. pdf.
15. See David Marples, "Belarus Election Campaign Turns Violent," Eurasia Daily Monitor, 8 March 2006, www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php? article_id=2370851.
16. Such crude hijacking of a Christian religious narrative caused significant outrage among believers, to the point that regime-affiliated filmmaker Yury Azaronak saw his work tossed out of an April 2006 film festival that the Belarusian Orthodox Church sponsored in Minsk.
17. Lukashenka is not alone in using this technique. Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev went even further in January 2006 when he ran a "color-coded" campaign for reelection.
18. Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).
19. See, for example, "Tekhnologii destabilizacii." Vo Slavu Rodiny, www.vsr.mil.by/index/nobrev.html.
20. The official figures may be viewed at http://rec.gov.by/elect/prrb2006/ mess13.html.
21. What were the true figures? A postelection survey that IISEPS carried out (despite threats of prosecution) placed Lukashenka's vote share at a more plausible but still decisive 63 percent, and found that Milinkevich had actually garnered 20 percent. The IISEPS research also showed that about three-fifths of voters found the official results either fully or mostly credible. See www.iiseps.org/3-06-1.html.
22. See www.osce.org/item/18438.html.
23. Comparisons between Ukraine and Belarus must take into account the size disparity between the two societies: Ukraine's population is about 46 million, while Belarus is less than a fourth that size with 10.2 million people. Thus a crowd of 20,000 in Belarus is roughly comparable to a crowd of 90,000 in Ukraine.
24. See www.iiseps.org/e4-06-1.html. Interestingly enough, in polling done about a month later (and available at the same Web link), IISEPS found that while the percentage approving of the protests had gone up slightly to 23.9 percent, the share of those disapproving had gone up even more - to 53.6 percent, while the category of those who professed themselves indifferent had shrunk by more than half, going from 33.7 percent of respondents to just 15.9 percent. These shifts may be taken as suggesting the degree to which official vilification of the protestors shaped the public's attitude toward them.
25. On the postelection protests, see David Marples, "Belarus: The End Game," Eurasia Daily Monitor, 24 March 2006, www.jamestown.org/edm/article. php?article_id=2370913.
26. See www.jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370916.
27. Quoted in Uladzimir Rouda, "Itogi izbiratelnoj kampanii 2006 dlia Belorusskoj politicheskoj oppozicii" (Results of the 2006 election campaign for the political opposition in Belarus), 11 May 2006, www.nmnby.org/pub/0605/ 11m.html.
28. Pauliuk Bykouski, "Gosudarstvo dlia naroda" (The state for the people), Belorusy i Rynok, 29 May-5 June 2005, available at http://belmarket.by/ index.php?article=27574.