Belarus: Europe’s Last Dictator
Following seventeen consecutive weeks of protests in Belarus, president Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule looks to be in jeopardy. Following the August 9 presidential elections, protesters and the international community denounced the election results as fraudulent and hundreds of thousands took to the streets demanding the resignation of the Belarusian strongman. If you listen closely, you might be able to make out the faint cry of Europe’s last dictator singing his swan song.
A Dictator in the Making
In the early 1990s Alexander Lukashenko emerged a strong and vocal leader, unafraid of challenging Soviet supremacy. From the halls of parliament he adamantly supported an attempted coup from Soviet leadership in 1991. He was a leader for the people, proudly declaring, “I am neither with the leftists nor the rightists. But with the people against those who rob and deceive them.”
Winning the first national election with 45% of the vote, Lukashenko took the reins of the fledgeling nation in 1994 and has yet to let go.
Lukashenko rose to prominence following his work in Belarusian collective farms, principally his time as the director of the Gorodets collective farm in 1986–89. At Gorodets, the director’s word was law, and no one questioned his commands. As his workers would quip, he was a god among men.
Lukashenko has craft his government around the old collective farm model. Surrounding himself with hand-picked yes-men, Belarus has become “a place where people work the land, earn low but stable wages, and are largely respectful — and obedient — to those in authority.”
This authoritarian sentiment was reflected in his early political career, when in 1996, Lukashenko disbanded parliament for seeking his impeachment. He swiftly replaced the parliament with hand-picked representatives who would later help to issue a 2004 referendum to extend presidential term limits, paving the way for his perpetual reign.
Never shying from his tendency toward repression and control, in August 2003, Lukashenko stated, “An authoritarian style of rule is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it. You need to control the country, and the main thing is not to ruin people’s lives.”
While Lukashenko has become known for political repression, his regime is also adept at exerting economic control over the population. As of 2020, the state run factories employed 40% of the national workforce. And despite government lip service to privatization, most “privatized” businesses are purchased by state-owned enterprises. Those that are purchased by truly private enterprises are purchased through heavy palm greasing and corrupt political channels.
Pavel P. Latushko, a former Belarusian culture minister and ambassador noted, “You understand well that if you express your point of view, you will be held responsible. You can be reprimanded, or face an administrative or criminal case. In the worst scenario, you can be destroyed physically.”
This control has characterized his 26-year rule in Belarus and is so broad-reaching that Lukashenko has not received less than 70% of the popular vote since his first election.
However, the autocrat’s iron grip appears to be slipping as hundreds of thousands of Belarusians storm the streets for seventeen consecutive weeks of nationwide protest.
A Dictator’s Playbook: Chilling Dissent
In the months preceding the elections, Lukashenko made clear that dissent was not an option. In May, the government detained Sairhei Tsikhanouskaya following the vlogger’s nomination as a presidential candidate.
Filling her husband’s shoes, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, became an unlikely presidential candidate running to free her husband. In her campaign she has emphasized her goals of freeing political prisoners, implementing national democratic reforms, distance Belarus from Russian influence, and restoring the original 1994 constitution.
Tsikanouskaya described the political climate leading up to the elections, “We have no rights at all… [the government] will never think about our people as people or united, we were just working power for them.”
As elections approached, Lukashenko warned citizens of “harsh” sanctions on any opposition that refused to accept the election results. State television emphasized this message by airing footage of the president inspecting riot gear.
As expected, Lukashenko easily won his sixth presidential term by gaining 82% of the national vote with 79% voter turn out. This year’s result was a tipping point for Belarusians; however, as thousands of people joined demonstrations following the election demanding have faced violent state repression, arrests, and brutal beatings to demand the resignation of Europe’s last dictator.
Despite government warnings, more than 200,000 amassed in protest across the country to denounce the election result and demand Lukashenko’s resignation. Fulfilling Lukashenko’s promise, protesters were met with harsh treatment by police forces including the beating and torture of protesters while in police custody. Across the country, protesters described dozens of people being forced into two-person holding cells where they have been held for multiple days, in some cases without food.
In the days following the election the opposition leader, Tsikhanouskaya, was held in the Central Election Commission (CEC) headquarters for three hours. During this time, she posted a distressed video to Facebook calling for an end to protests and asking her supporters to recognize the election result. Following the video, Tsikhanouskaya fled to Lithuania where she remains in exile.
As protests continue, the government has become increasingly creative in its repression of dissent. In late November, a protester was sentenced to two years of restricted liberty in an open prison (khimiya) for “hooliganism” after replacing the official national flag with the official white-red-white one that has come to represent the protest movement.
According to the human rights center, Viasna, more than 25,000 protesters have been arrested and more than 147 individuals are being held as political prisoners.
Mounting an Opposition
Internationally Brussels, London, and Washington have denounced election results and refuse to recognize Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus.
The EU Council president Charles Michel decried the election result stating, “the people of Belarus have the right to determine their own future.” The EU Council president also noted the EU’s intention to place sanctions on Belarus for “breaches of rights of the population, disrespect for citizens’ fundamental freedoms, and for election fraud.”
Despite delays due to an unrelated dispute raised by Cyprus, the EU placed targeted sanctions on 40 Belarusian officials in early October. Sanctions included travel bans and the freezing of assets for officials who had been identified as responsible for repression and intimidation against peaceful demonstrators.
Within hours of the EU sanctions announcement, the government of Belarus retaliated, placing targeted sanctions on a list EU officials. A representative from Belarus opined that while the EU’s sanctions target individuals, the EU would being lying to itself if it thought sanctions would not impact Belarusian citizens.
Amidst continued international outcries against the state-sponsored repression, the government response to protests softened, albeit slightly. In late September, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry withdrew press credentials for all journalists associated with foreign media outlets, decreasing frontline information. Since the withdrawal of media credentials, at least 23 journalists have been detained across Belarus.
Following few efforts made by Lukashenko to ameliorate international concerns, the EU approved a second round of targeted sanctions on 15 Belarusian officials in mid-November.
By November, Russia had joined in pressuring the aging dictator to take action to end national unrest. Responding to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s petition for government reform, Lukashenko announced that presidential powers should be limited through constitutional reform. However, intimating that he plans to stay in power, he stressed that passing the office to an “unknown” would be a recipe for disaster.
While Lukashenko’s position is weakening, it does not appear that he will be handing over power any time soon. The coming weeks will likely shed more light on what is to come for Belarus and Europe’s last dictator, but recent events continue to dampen hope that Lukashenko will step down in the near future.
