Breaking point

The situation in Belarus has changed. Hopes for changes have appeared for the first time in five years.

The night that lasted for years came in Belarus on 19 December 2010. Almost 1,000 arrested people, all opposition leaders are in jail, torture, fear, prosecution, exodus of people from the country, the metro bombing, suppression of even the most innocent protests, attempts of secret services to gain total control over everything from opposition parties to independent media.

Until 2010, there had been opportunities, though few, for legal actions despite killings, prison terms and frauds. Hands were not tied so tightly, and not all had the gag in the mouth. The past five years will perhaps be known in history of Belarus as the most difficult years, also due to their emptiness.

Scenarios of secret services often fail when everything seems to be under control. The pseudo elections of 2015 were supposed to be the climax, the triumph of the mopping-up operation carried out by the KGB since the latest presidential elections.

The introduction of the play looks as follows: about twenty candidates, among them controllable political outcasts and freaks, announced their presidential ambitions. Ambitions made a democratic politician – head of the United Civil Party Anatol Liabedzka – announce his intention to run in the elections. Everything looked idyllic in dictatorial Belarus against the background of the war in Ukraine, when the West begins to rank “stability” higher than principles. The threat of the recognition of Lukashenka's elections was becoming real, especially taking into account that candidates didn't plan to carry out protests against electoral frauds.

But one cannot deceive people. Only few naïve people have remained in Belarus after 20 years of unashamed manipulations. Their number has reduced after Lukashenka demonstrated what he was ready to do to preserve power. Voting in elections for an ordinary citizen is not even stupidity. It's absolute idiocy.

The campaign to collect signatures for candidates showed moods of the Belarusians. Outcasts and freaks were screened out, and Anatol Liabedzka admitted he failed to collect the required number of signatures due to inactivity of voters.

As a result, the rest “candidates” turned out to be naked. It became clear that none of those who said they collected 100,000 signatures, including Lukashenka himself, collected anything. Stacks of lists with signatures were delivered straight from appropriate agencies. The dictator mustn't feel bored during the show.

Meanwhile, the financial and economic catastrophe and the lack of money made Lukashenka release the political prisoners, whom he held as rainy day funds. The dictator now expects the recognition and loans from the West in exchange for his “humanity”.

But the former political prisoners spoilt the internal political game for him. Candidate in the 2010 presidential elections Mikalai Statkevich managed to unite the remains of healthy democratic forces and said in public: the “elections” in Belarus were already rigged.

The courage of Statkevich inspired people. Poet Uladzimir Niaklaieu finally said he had quit the pro-regime Tell the Truth campaign because its head Andrei Dzmitryeu works for secret services, and BPF head Aliaksei Yanukevich refused to support the KGB's protégé at the elections. In general, it looks almost like a thriller, to be more precise, its second part, the most interesting one, when the good begins to defeat the evil.

It's awkward to speak about elections in Belarus. An OSCE observer, who recently arrived in Minsk, told me he had never felt so foolish. Why did he come? What he will observe?

The farce with the participation of Lukashenka, a KGB candidate and a double agent?

It's a shame to watch seemingly independent journalists creating a semblance of a choice in Belarus, describing everything done by the ridiculous extras. What is this? The lack of professionalism under the guise of impartiality or an order?

We need to admit that this is the breaking point. The situation begins to change for the better. The opposition and people will boycott or ignore (choose whichever you like) these “elections”, and even an attempt of the West to see “progress” in the last dictatorship of Europe does not play a big role, because Belarus is changing. One of the proofs is fraternising between Belarusian and Ukrainian football fans and a 35,000 crowd chanting “Long live Belarus” in Lviv.

The Belarusians begin to decide themselves how they will live and in what country.

Natallia Radzina, editor-in-chief of charter97.org