The recent elections in Belarus bring memories of the Stalin era back to mind, said Berit Lindeman of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee during a post-election seminar on human rights and democracy in Belarus last week. Her conclusion is that the recent events that came and went under the name of ´elections´ do not deserve to be called so. (22-NOV-04)
 
“Vote early and vote often,” Stalin apparently said, explaining himself, somehow, by another quotation of his, that “it is not important who votes, but who is counting the votes”. Both of these insights from an era one would have hoped was long gone came back with a vengeance while observing the mid-October elections in Belarus, in which President Lukachenko ran away with approximately 99 % of the votes. Needless to say, the fraud was so widespread and blatant, the result so predetermined, that observing the actual election procedures was pretty much a waste.

-Failed on all counts
Lindeman, who has observed numerous elections, mostly in the post-Soviet republics, but also for instance in Somaliland, summed up that for an open and fair election to take place, the only thing needed is the political will for this to happen. In Somaliland, for instance, she took part in counting the votes, sitting on the ground in straw huts. There is, in other words, no material excuses for failing to make an electio free and fair for all. In Belarus, however, the authorities failed on all counts.

A farce with a foregone conclusion
Lindeman´s analysis focused on three key categories of shortcomings. First of all, throughout the campaign prior to the elections, both the electorate and all other candidates than President Lukashenko himself were so intimidated that a true, reliable result was impossible. Several people ´disappeared,´ among them well-known oppositionals. The Council of Europe, among others, claims that the responsibility for these incidences must be placed with the authorities. Secondly, in Belarus, freedom of opinion and expression has been reduced to next to nothing. The punishment for speaking out against the authorities is harsh, possibly including several years of labour colony service. Thirdly, the use of so-called administrative arrest became even more wide-spread during the campaign and the elections themselves than ever before. Other ways of silencing oppositional voices, such as fines, beatings, confiscation of work contracts and ordinary arrests were also used.

Licence to Life Presidency secured
Even if the recent so-called elections were the first since 1995 in which any kind of opposition took part, it would be totally misleading to let what happened pass as ´elections´. In addition, the whole thing was arranged to coincide with a referendum over whether or not to abandon the paragraph in the Constitution limiting any presidential candidate to one re-election only. Needless to say, the result once again went Lukashenko´s way. Hence, from now on, and as if to make it clear for all that the election bit of the recent events really weren´t necessary, Lukashenko has entitled himself, with the blessinbg of the Constitution, to remain President for life.