Blog from Belarus
Election day
Sunday 28th September was the day of the Belarus national elections for the Lower Chamber of its Parliament. I thought it unusual to have elections on a Sunday but was informed that this day was chosen in an attempt to maximise the opportunity for voters to participate.
We were divided into pairs for the Election Monitoring Mission. I was paired with an American woman called ‘Winsome Packer’ who turned out to be a very interesting companion (more about that later!). We were also allocated a young Belarusian interpreter and driver for the day. We were given a map with approximately 30 polling stations that were located in the North East of Minsk. It was made clear that we were expected to visit approximately 10 polling stations during the day to ensure that the correct procedures were being followed. We were given a very detailed handbook containing checklists that had to be completed for each of the polling stations we visited. We met in the foyer of our hotel at 6.45am that morning. The hours of opening of the polling stations were 8am-8pm.
Local assistance
Our driver was a very interesting young guy. His name was Alexander and he drove a large and expensive-looking SUV. He was obviously from a wealthy family and he mentioned that he regularly went snow-boarding in the North of Italy where his sister lived. He had studied some form of engineering in college and was now working in the field of information technology and alternative energy. He spoke very positively about the lot of young people in Belarus. He claimed that jobs were readily available for young people and that the Belarus economy was doing quite well. He seemed very satisfied with Lukashenko’s leadership and also stressed his admiration for Putin. He said that many of his relatives were Russian and that he would have no difficulty in fighting to defend Russia if it were attacked (he had not yet been conscripted to the Belarus army).
Our interpreter was a young Belarusian who was a student of linguistics. She spoke English with a perfect American accent and admitted to us that she had spent the past three summers in the US. She said that applying for a visa to travel abroad was a bit of a lottery but that while some of her friends had been refused, she had always been lucky. She was interested to be told that the European Parliament employed many interpreters and said that she had never considered that possibility as a future employment option. She seemed reluctant to pass comment on Lukashenko’s leadership or the conduct of the elections generally.
Polling stations
Most of the polling stations that we visited during the day were located in colleges, hospitals and factories. The buildings were all quite old and run-down and in need of modernisation. There was very little evidence of any posters outside the polling centres, or of any political parties or candidates around or near the polling centres. There was only one official poster inside each polling centre containing the pictures and names of all four candidates who were contesting the election in North East Minsk. The text under each photo explained what party the candidate belonged to, if any, and listed their annual income and any assets they owned! The photos were very old fashioned and certainly lacked the eye-catching qualities of some of the poster campaigns used by candidates in this country.
In each of the centres, we were greeted by the Chairman of the local electoral committee who was inevitably a male! He introduced us to the remainder of his committee who sat behind a long table and checked voters ID against the list of voters. We were seated at an observer’s table, which was about four metres away from where the officials sat. There were usually one or two domestic observers sitting at the our table but they were usually linked to pro-government parties or groups.
The voters and officials observed the voting protocols with great solemnity. The polling booths reminded me of traditional confession boxes – the voters had to pull a curtain closed behind them before casting their vote in the privacy of the booth. Voter turn-out was about 30% by lunchtime but many voters had already voted several days previously. They took advantage of the “early voting” facility which meant that anyone who couldn’t vote on Sunday 28th was offered a chance to vote early (between 25th and 28th). These early voters were typically students, military and elderly people. However, in some polling stations approximately 50% of those eligible to vote had done so by means of “early voting” and it was impossible for the election monitors to determine whether the voting was above board or not.
Polling stations also offered a “mobile” voting service, where those who were unable to travel to the station had a mobile ballot box brought to them in their homes/in hospital etc. Again it was impossible for us to determine whether these votes had been cast in a way that met the criteria of the OSCE Election Mission.
Levels of co-operation
We were very struck by the levels of co-operation that we received from all of the officials that we met. Most had very poor English but they communicated with us through our interpreter. They were willing to answer our questions and to demonstrate that they were complying to the letter with election protocols. In fact in one polling centre that we visited, the officials were very taken with my American colleague, Winsome Packer, and they told her that she closely resembled US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice!
When we left the polling station, two officials followed us with red carnations – one each for the American, the interpreter and for me. However, it was interesting that when the end of the day approached and the vote was counted, the co-operative attitude of the officials disappeared.
We were not allowed to approach the table at which the votes were being counted but had to sit about four metres away. It was impossible to monitor what was being counted or the accuracy of the eventual results when they were announced. My colleague and I protested and asked through our interpreter for much greater levels of transparency in relation to the process of counting votes. However, our requests were ignored and the official results were posted up in the polling station very soon after that. We registered a complaint with officials at the District Electoral Division and were relieved later to hear that approximately 40% of the other election monitors had experienced the same lack of official co-operation regarding the vote count.
Election results
The overall voter turn-out for the election was 75% but the final results showed that not one single opposition candidate was elected to the Lower Chamber of Parliament. That may be a coincidence. However, the heavy bias in the Belarusian media towards government parties, the lack of information available about opposition candidates and their policy platforms and the lack of transparency about the way in which the vote was counted all give rise to very real concerns about how democratic the process actually was.
My own analysis of the situation is that a great deal of change needs to occur in the political culture of Belarus before genuinely democratic elections can become a reality. The population is unaccustomed to the kind of competition between political ideas that form the basis of any democratic system.
Luksahenko is viewed as a strong leader who, while feared, has brought stability and improved economic conditions to Belarus since 1994. I heard it said while I was there that things are better now under Lukashenko than they were in the Communist era and that people, particularly older people, are afraid to rock the boat.
There are definitely strong traditional ties to Russia, but I sensed amongst its younger people a strong interest in closer links with the European Union. The young people I met were very impressive and very well-educated. Belarus itself is strategically positioned between Russia and the EU. The tensions that have emerged between Lukashenko and Putin and the changing economic relationship between the two countries mean that there may be an opportunity for the EU to continue to patiently develop closer economic, political and cultural ties with Belarus. Its young people will be an important part of any longer-term strategy pursued by the EU in this regard. It would appear therefore that a “carrot and stick” approach by the EU where it sanctions Belarus where appropriate but also offers the “carrot” of subsidized cultural and educational programmes particularly aimed at its younger people may yield important political benefits in the future.
