The Revolution Is On Hold, OK?
The U.S. calls Belarus 'an outpost of tyranny,' but many of its citizens are in no rush for democracy
It may take more than that to claim victory at the polls next year, when Lukashenko will run for a third term. The opposition remains weak and divided. At a recent gathering in neighboring Lithuania, a frustrated American expert working with the opposition candidates played the Elvis Presley hit with the lyrics "A little less conversation, a little more action please" and told the candidates, "It's going to be the theme song for all of you."
It will also be an uphill battle. The presidential elections next year are expected to be rigged to give Lukashenko a massive majority. "It's not Election Day; it's the day after that's important," says a senior European diplomat. "It's a tossup between Lukashenko staying in forever and a violent overthrow where unpredictably people say they've had enough. [But] there has to be something that is the last straw."
For now, many Belarussians seem to prefer the status quo to the possible alternative, the kind of economic turmoil they have seen befall other former Soviet states. Products here are cheap, the official unemployment rate is low, and the government pays pensions regularly and relatively amply. "Lukashenko has given us a good life," says pensioner Maria Balzevich, 61, who lives in a dilapidated village an hour from the capital. When asked if she misses the Soviet Union, Balzevich looks around her two-room dacha, smiles, and replies, "What do you mean? I still live in the Soviet Union."
"Total control." While Belarus lacks the level of paranoia characteristic of Soviet rule, there is a culture of fear, enforced by a bureaucracy with far-reaching tentacles. "There will always be a rule you will break, there will always be a way to punish you, and this way you'll always have something to lose: your money, your job, your life," says attorney Vitali Braginets. At least 80 percent of the Belarussian economy is centrally planned, and what little private business is permitted is heavily regulated and taxed. The laws and regulations change practically daily. "We have a joke in Belarus," Braginets says, "that psycho asylums have a separate room just for accountants and lawyers."
Last year, Lukashenko pushed a law through the puppet parliament requiring that all government jobs be reviewed and renewed annually. "As soon as a person complains about what's going on, he loses his contract, and this is done publicly in order to instill fear in others," says a leading pro-western opposition figure, Sergey Kalyakin of the Party of Communists of Belarus. "And this system will be sustainable as long as fear trumps people's desire to change the situation."
Analysts say that what keeps the centrally planned economy from collapsing is the permitted coexistence of a symbiotic, shadow economy. Big business rarely declares more than 30 percent of income, but in return it subsidizes the dying collective farm industry. Foreign companies can invest in Belarus, but they must donate money to a "voluntary" civic projects fund, which finances hundreds of construction ventures. "Lukashenko uses corruption as another measure for exerting power on the people," says the senior European diplomat.
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