Dissenting voice may be drowned out in Belarus: Autocratic leader is likely to head off challenge in race to be president, says Robert Cottrell :: Charter'97 :: News

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus probably does not need to rig the vote directly to win next month`s presidential election, says one western diplomat in Minsk. But force of habit, at least among his supporters, may be too strong.

Mr Lukashenko reportedly said this week he thought 90 per cent of the population would vote for him on September 9.

He scarcely needs a result that implausible. But after seven years in office, and after rewriting the constitution in 1996 to concentrate power in his own hands, he can probably have any result he wants. "If he didn`t appoint the deputy mayor of some small town, he appointed the guy who appointed him," says another diplomat.

Mr Lukashenko has also kept the economy largely under government control. Average wages are less than Dollars 100 a month. But they are paid on time, so are pensions, and there is little unemployment. This gives the president a genuine basis of popular support among the 10m population, says a western economist.

But the survival of an autocratic regime in a country that lies across Russia`s main communication lines to central and western Europe leaves many of Belarus`s neighbours more than a bit uncomfortable.

Poverty aside, the dark side of Mr Lukashenko`s rule includes his retention of a large and heavy-handed security apparatus to suppress dissent. In recent weeks leaked documents and testimony from defectors have told of a police "death squad", first set up to kill suspected gang leaders, but also used to kill critics of the regime.

Mr Lukashenko has not been directly implicated in this scandal. But he has resisted calls to set up an independent inquiry and to suspend the officials allegedly involved.

The allegations rest partly on papers sent anonymously to Vladimir Goncharik, leader of the country`s independent Trades Union Federation, who made them public.

Mr Goncharik is one of the country`s few remaining strong voices of dissent. Support is building behind his plans to oppose Mr Lukashenko in next month`s election. Five other opposition figures have so far rallied behind his "single candidacy".

Mr Goncharik says he has stepped up his own security precautions but does not fear for his life. "I don`t think it would be in Lukashenko`s interests to have something happen to me or my family," he said in an interview. Too many people, he says, would blame the president directly for any such attack.

Mr Goncharik says he believes about 30 per cent of voters back Mr Lukashenko. Another 30 per cent are determined to vote against Mr Lukashenko. The rest are undecided.

He thinks that gives him a chance of victory but only if the coalition behind him holds together, and only if he can somehow get his message out. His hopes for publicity rest with the Russian and Polish television stations widely watched in Belarus, with the country`s much-harassed independent newspapers and with the grassroots influence of the trades unions.

This month Mr Goncharik overcame one big bureaucratic hurdle by submitting 100,000 authenticated signatures to the electoral commission in support of his candidacy. Out of 22 would-be candidates, only four, have got this far.

In policy terms, Mr Goncharik`s platform is a modest one. He is not promising radical economic reforms, nor big shifts in foreign policy. He is a social democrat, he says. He favours a mixed economy and a welfare state. He wants to bring Belarus closer to the European Union but he wants close ties with Russia too.

Mainly, he says, he wants to get rid of the fear and aggression which he sees as the basis of Mr Lukashenko`s rule. "Lukashenko has created a situation in which everyone around him is an enemy", he says. "Everyone is afraid. Businessmen are afraid. Ministers are afraid." His aim, he says, "is not simply to change Lukashenko but to change that system of power. If we do not, then a new Lukashenko will emerge."

But Mr Goncharik`s chances of winning an election in Mr Lukashenko`s Belarus are slim. Marius Vahl, research fellow with the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, says: "Maybe six months ago I might have said that the opposition would pull something off, but there are minimal chances now."