Uladzimir Matskevich: You can’t participate in deceit; otherwise you become a deceiver, too

Belarusan opposition is led by people for whom participation in the election is the only way to keep the image that they have invented.

The opposition has been elaborating the procedure of nominating a single candidate to the presidency for a year, but in result failed to agree at all. A year before the president campaign 2015 Belarusan political forces once again demonstrated their complete incompetence.

Why is opposition taking part in the election that doesn’t exist? Uladzimir Matskevich, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus”, answers the questions of “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- The attempts to define a procedure of a single candidate that the opposition was making throughout this year failed, ending in a scandal and mutual accusations. Why do opposition politicians and parties take part in the election if everyone knows that there is no election in the country?

 - This question is concern to many, and a lot of people don’t have answer to that question. I think different people and different parties are going to take part in this election according to different reasons.

People who are far from opposition and active social and political work have a number of easy answers to these questions: 1) Politicians are working off their grants; they get money for election but not for boycott; 2) This is false opposition, not real; they do only what is profitable for Lukashenka and the regime; 3) They just can’t do anything else.

I can hardly agree with such answers knowing the situation a little bit better; but I cannot but take them into consideration.

First, no money is given not only for boycott, but for election as well; there is merely no one to give money for that. We can’t apply the same rules that are working for Russia and Ukraine where politics is big money. We had such practice back in the 90s, when Lukashenka got the biggest funding to win. But when he came to power, first thing he did was to destroy business and businessmen who were ready to invest their money in politics; he banned all foundations and donations for political and party work. By 1999 after several politicians and businessmen related to them disappeared there was no money left in Belarusan politics.

Politics and democracy are expensive; they are degrading without funding. And now it is the final stage of degradation that we are observing. The remains that politicians have been raising for their president election campaigns in 2006 and in 2010 are some savings from their other activity and minor donations. It would be ridiculous to talk about money in parliamentary and local election. And only this factor – funding of political sphere – leaves really small chances for the opposition politicians.

Secondly, not all the opposition is false; there are a lot of honest people in it. Though we cannot exclude the false candidates, such as Tsiareshchanka and Haidukevich. But everyone knows these people and the fact that they are false candidates is an open secret for everyone, including their supporters.

False candidates who became false not because of their will, as in happened with Kazulin, is another thing. In 2010 all who didn’t raise the required amount of signatures for their nomination were false. These people didn’t have enough will, responsibility and honesty to refuse from participation in this farce of pluralism and pseudo-democracy. But they didn’t become false candidates because they are working for the regime; it happened because of their narrow-mindedness.

Thirdly, we have to admit that after the years of living in a marginal status, our oppositionists can’t do anything. Some time ago these people could work as good professionals; but over years their knowledge became out of date, and they didn’t get any new political and administrative professionalism because there was nowhere to get it. So it appears that they can’t do anything but pretend to be politicians.

Politicians have answers to these questions, too: 1) Politics is struggle for power, which means that politician is obliged to take part in the election regardless of its result; 2) Participation in “election” opens new opportunities for communication with the electorate, for agitation, and propaganda; 3) We still need to do something.

Honestly speaking, these questions cannot stand up to criticism.

Politics is not only struggle for power, but also struggle for influence and public processes, which doesn’t necessarily require power; pop-stars, journalists, writers, sportsmen, all media persons, as well as professional communities, creative unions, professional unions, associations, i.e. all sorts of NGOs influence people and their opinions. Our opposition politicians avoid NGOs as competitors or a place where only volunteers can be found. But before claiming one’s rights on something, a politician has to build up some social stock, which is made of their reputation and influence.

Our election doesn’t open any additional opportunities for communication with the electorate, which I mentioned more than once, with facts and researches. However, this myth is still popular among our politicians.

The thesis about the need to “do something” is very ridiculous; you have to think before acting, otherwise you’ll commit follies that would lead to a completely different result than that planned. And our politicians have big problems with that. A lot of them can’t stand the presence of each other, don’t want to talk with each other, and only have forced meetings.

And in the situation we have now, opposition perceives political and economic analysts as opponents or enemies except for those who praise them. Our politicians don’t trust researches; they don’t know how to do planning.

Thus, it happens so that the participation in pseudo-election is the only way to preserve their image, self-respect, and self-importance in the form they imagined. That is why they have such reaction to criticism; it affects them personally, as it presents a threat to their self-importance and disrupts the image they have about themselves.

This line of behaviour is childish; it is the lifestyle for losers. The regime is using that and is easily manipulating the opposition, without briberies and recruitment.

- You named all the opposition leaders hypocrites, cowards, and dull people, and one might agree with a lot here. Opposition understands the malignancy of their actions, but stubbornly continues it. Contradictions between actions and understanding of the consequences should have a different explanation.

- Would I be able to call them so in media? Well, yes. I have to deliver my point of view to the broad public somehow.

I have never taken my stance for absolute truth; I can be mistaken, but I always build my position on firm grounds – researches, experience, and sober analysis of the situation. Having a well-argued position, I still preserve skepticism and self-criticism; I am ready to consider objections and refutations if they are well-grounded. But my opponents have no such arguments, so they merely escape communication and keep doing what they are doing.

- You have long ago formulated your stance: if there is no election, there is no campaign; if there is no campaign, there are no candidates; if there are no candidates, we don’t need the nomination procedure. What is the format of non-participation in the president campaign that you suggest?

- With the resources and influence we have opposition cannot organize boycott of election; that is why I would name my suggestion a strike, and all those who will somehow take part in this “election” - strikebreakers. You can’t participate in deceit; otherwise you become a deceiver, too.

- What does non-participation in the president campaign give?

- Refusal from participation requires explanations. So let’s explain that in media, seminars, and party meetings. Everywhere. Basically, non-participation in the election opens the same opportunities for agitation and propaganda as participation does. But nonparticipation is an honest position, while participation is a deceit.

- Belarusan opposition lives from campaign to campaign. All the essence of the current opposition is in its participation in each new political campaign regardless of the result. If they abstain from participation, they lose any sense to exist. Maybe they should look for a new sense of existence?

- Let me answer you honestly and principally. Opposition are such people as I am, who do not take part in the actions organized by the regime; we are passive opposition. But this opposition will show up, as only there is opportunity for real action.

- What Belarus is to expect in 2015? We all hope for changes; however, there is almost no hope.

- Nothing good. Anyway, the topic of our today’s conversation (president pseudo-election) doesn’t give any opportunity to discuss the near future.