Uladzimir Matskevich: The civil society is interested in uniting the opposition

The political forces that will refuse to participate in the consolidation of the Belarusan opposition and civil society are at risk of being sidelined.

This is the opinion was expressed by the head of the Board of the International Consortium EuroBelarus, chairman of the of the Interim Coordination Committee of the Belarusan National Platform of the EaP Civil Society Forum Uladzimir Matskevich.

From a political point of view, Belarusan society is now going through an autumn-winter mood after the parliamentary election. The previous experience shows that, after one more failure, the political forces tend to be cast down, and the civil society is embraced by apathy. However, according to Uladzimir Matskevich, we are observing not the most profound social and political depression:

- I do not rule out that this impression is caused only by the fact that no one in fact had staked seriously on the past elections. Nobody planned to win, no one was going to give a serious battle to the regime, no one was going to organize mass protests. Therefore, there was no political temperature. After all, it is usually like this: more hopes you have before a failure, the greater is the depth of depression. This was in 2006 and 2010, for example. However, now, the general political background is more or less calm, stable. Naturally, all the stagnation and regression did not disappear. And currently, after the past election campaign, the opposition has even fewer supporters; even less active participants has remained.

- Some politicians, including you, have expressed the need to begin preparations for the 2015 presidential election. Why, though, do not you take into account the elections to the local councils, which will be held in 2014 year?

- Under our authoritarian regime with dictatorial style, no election is possible. Therefore, there is no real election - either parliamentary or presidential or local. It is an ordinary assignment. And since there is no election in principle, and local council elections do not attract public attention, there is simply no sense wasting breath. The participants will certainly receive some experience in the course of the future elections, but it is absolutely impossible to stake on them.

First of all, we need mobilization effects to change the regime and to introduce democracy in the country. To do this, we have to take advantage of the situations in which the regime is weakening. And the weakest situation for the regime is the presidential election.

- The National Platform of the EaP Civil Society, which you are heading, is planning to participate in the next election campaign as a separate socio-political entity?

- The Belarusan National Platform is ready to participate more actively in the political life of the country. Under certain changes of the Belarusan legislation, the National Platform could take more active part in election campaigns, as well. But in the present situation, under the current legal framework, under the dictatorship, public organizations have no right to directly participate in elections. And for many years now, public organizations have never showed even need in it. Almost all public associations, created after 96 as a reserve for political activities, were participating in election campaigns in conjunction with the parties that created them.

The National Platform to date has no plans of direct participation in political processes, nominating candidates, creating blocks or deputy groups. But we plan to interact with the political forces, with politicized NGOs in order to unite the opposition in general. That is our main goal and main purpose. If there will be consolidated actions, then it will be possible to attract many community organizations’ forces, at regional and national levels. If there will be no consolidation, even inside the National Platform there will be supporters of various political forces. But in this case, the very National Platform becomes very cluttered. Therefore, we are interested in the consolidation and unification of the opposition. All the more, this consolidation may occur on the base of the National Platform itself.

On the other hand, we must be prepared for the fact that the current regime will need to modify some way the structure of the country’s political life. Obviously, after all, that in the course of recent convocations, the House of Representatives and the National Assembly have very much degraded and become unprofessional. Not only that, from the very start, the regime has not given any serious role to the Parliament in the state system, but of today, this minimization has led to the fact that nobody is able to initiate any law or work at them, or to perform the most basic responsibilities in the Parliament. And that's not to mention the fact of representing Belarus in various international institutions. This means that the regime can still go for a change in the political structure of the country. One of the scenarios is creating large pro-regime parties; for example, on the basis of today's public association "Belaya Rus", which will herewith become very large and numerous party. What can we say to this? None of the opposition parties has such a number of members and activists; if we put together three more or less established parties, even then we will not get even close to the comparable figures with the ones of pro-regime structures. Add to this two any active social movements, but still the overall figures will differ at times!

- What role can the National Platform play in this situation?

- The only way to oppose something is to create non-party socio-political movements. It is exactly the National Platform that under the right activities could be countered to the regime mega-party. On the basis of the National Platform of the EaP Civil Society a united opposition structure could be formed, opposes to the pro-government party. This process also has to be prepared for, despite the fact that this is not the electoral campaign.

Another important role of the National Platform is not that we run our candidates, but that we actually represent voters. Who opposition politicians appeal to when seeking their supporters? Whom they are looking for support at? At civil society! And what is civil society? Roughly speaking, it is all those who feel themselves citizens. Not subjects, not residents, not population, but exactly citizens. But it is difficult for one citizen to speak out on behalf of others. When some consolidated positions are heard, these are statements on behalf of associations of citizens, that is, of non-governmental organizations, NGOs. And all of these organizations are exactly what the National Platform is. And the role of each member of the National Platform is not so much to be a candidate and to be elected, but mostly to be a voter. Hence, politicians should be interested to talk to us, to the citizens, to the voters. And herewith, we will be also propagators of political ideas, programs, and slogans for civil society in the broader sense. And as long as we do not accept the dissonance and pettiness of political programs and positions, we are an obstacle between the politicians and the broader civil society. Therefore, politicians, in order to get the support, need in the first place to agree with the National Platform. Without agreeing with the National Platform, but vice versa, being at feud with it, politicians will more and more isolating themselves from the Belarusan civil society and from the general population.

- Are the existing contradictions avoidable in reality, including the existing within the National Platform?

- These contradictions have destructive tendencies for the National Platform activity, but they can be overcome. Besides, I see that even those who do not want to take the National Platform seriously are forced to. A big number of political forces are moving opposite to the National Platform, thereby strengthening them, as well. Although, at the background of this opposition political camp’s moving, there are the ones who will hold their ground to the end. We are aware of this, and we will not make Herculean efforts to negotiate with someone who persists. If they want, let them remain sidelined of the social process.