Uladzimir Matskevich: The West is ready to establish normal relations with Lukashenka’s regime

Regardless of the election results, European states and the whole EU will continue mending relations with the regime.

On October, 11 Aliaksandr Lukashenka won a landslide victory over his rivals – 83.49% of Belarusian citizens supported him, the Central Election Commission states. According to the provisional data, over 6% of electors voted against all candidates. Tatsiana Karatkevich gained 4.42% of the vote, Siarhei Haidukevich – 3.32% and Mikalai Ulahovich – 1.67%. No one doubted whose surname would be named by the CEC after the voting; however, the results of three other candidates, none of whom got more than 5% of votes, are disturbing, not that the results of the presidential campaign were known even before its start.

What’s next? How will the West evaluate the presidential campaign? Will it recognize these elections? And what should the democratic part of the society that is now completely demoralized do?

Uladzimir Matskevich, philosopher and methodologist, the head of the Board of the International Consortium “EuroBelarus” answered the questions of the “EuroBelarus” Information Service.

- No one doubted whose surname would be named by the CEC after the voting; however, 4-6% for the “single democratic candidate” Karatkevich came as a shock. Did Lukashenka demonstrate that he won’t let “a person in a skirt” fight for the presidential post?

- Perhaps, someone might have expected bigger results from Karatkevich, but I don’t think that they really could have been bigger. She wasn’t able to become popular over the time that she has become known to the voters. “The skirt”, or a gender factor played its role; but Karatkevich remained unknown to the broader public from the start till the voting. However, the voters, who were thinking about elections observed three puppet candidates and were terrified with their programs, qualifications, and speeches. Neither students, who make a significant part of Lukashenka’s electorate, nor business could have liked Karatkevich. That’s why I think that by their election campaigns all the three candidates were working for Lukashenka’s image: in comparison with them, Lukashenka is well-known; they say that an old horse makes a straight furrow. Only complete romantic dreamers could have assumed that Karatkevich would get a different result.

This result is not only a consequence of falsifications; I think that here no special falsifications were needed. Figures in Lukashenka’s favor were falsified: he got the votes of those who went to the preliminary voting and those who didn’t come to elections; whereas Haidukevich, Ulahovich, and Karatkevich got their real results.

- The opposition leaders call upon the West to disclaim the results of the presidential campaign. But the campaign ended without dispersals, but with quiet falsifications. How will the West evaluate the campaign?

- The West does have a political culture, an image of what the elections are. What was or wasn’t happening during the last month before the elections is only a small part (an important, but a small part) of the electoral process. The elections won’t be recognized not because no one was dispersed, not due to the crude reports of the observers who recorded the violations; these are rather the half-finished products that cannot be filed in the court.

To disclaim the elections any of the following factors is enough: the mere monopolization of mass media, the idea of how the candidates are represented, the monitoring of financial support of candidates, a quick look at the use of the administrative resources. We shouldn’t think that elections are a mere collection of signatures and a month of election campaign; the elections are done during the whole period – from elections to elections. The situation that exists in Belarus doesn’t correspond to any democratic norms.

Even if there are no falsifications, not adjustment of voter turnout, no coercion to vote, these elections still cannot be recognized as legitimate due to the general organization of political system and mass media in Belarus.

- But even before the elections and during them the West has repeatedly hinted at the possible freeze of sanctions against the official Minsk.

- The signs about the readiness to freeze sanctions have appeared before the elections, though they are indirectly related to the elections themselves. The West is ready to establish normal relations with Lukashenka’s regime, because today there is no alternative to it in Belarus. And there are no signs that Lukashenka’s regime is unstable and prompt to changes. When the situation in the country is stable, realpolitik consists of dealing with the authorities that are ruling in the country. After putting in some claims and having formulated criteria, the West finds it very inconvenient to normalize relations with this regime until the claims are fulfilled. But the West has no other choice. That’s why regardless of the election results, European states and the whole EU will continue mending relations with the regime.

- After this campaign the democratic part of society is demoralized and left with nothing. What should we do next?

- I don’t want to answer this question for one simple reason: all my rational pragmatic arguments and reasons have always turned on resistance of both the leaders of the Belarusan opposition that has exhausted itself as well as the significant part of opposition-minded public opinion. The thing is that pragmatic and rational offers and arguments contradict dreams, fantasies, and hopes for the miracle. I am ready to voice the programs, strategies, and offers regarding the behavior in the existing situation. But I am only ready to it for those who admit the real situation. To make offers to dreamers and frantic morons, who prefer to live in their fantasies, not reality means to get accusations and hear the cursing in your address. That’s why now it’s time to work quietly; and I will only work with those, who are willing to look at things realistically. And, perhaps, work not for the public declaration, but for a narrow circle of people; work with real demand.