Legal Aid Board, Ireland Refugee Documentation Centre 9th European Country of Origin Information Seminar Organised by the Refugee Documentation Centre, Ireland and UNHCR Dublin, 26-27 May 2004 COUNTRY PROFILE – BELARUS The views and opinions stated in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers of the workshop. This paper is not, and does not purport to be, fully exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed, or conclusive as to the merits of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Belarus Location: Eastern Europe, east of Poland Area: 80,155 square miles/207,600 sq km Capital: Minsk Independence: 25 August 1991 (from Soviet Union) Constitution: 15 March 1994; revised by national referendum of 24 November 1996 giving the presidency greatly expanded powers and became effective 27 November 1996; revised again 17 October 2004 removing presidential term limits Population: 10,293,011 (July 2006 est.) Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal Ethnic Groups: Belarusian 81.2%, Russian 11.4%, Polish 3.9%, Ukrainian 2.4%, other 1.1% (1999 census) Languages: Belarusian, Russian, other Religions: Eastern Orthodox 80%, other (including Roman Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim) 20% (1997 est.) Head of state Chief of state: President Aleksandr LUKASHENKO (since 20 July 1994) Head of government: Prime Minister Sergei SIDORSKY (since 19 December 2003); First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir SEMASHKO (since December 2003) Political parties and leaders 1 9th COI Seminar Organised by the RDC - Ireland and UNHCR Dublin, 26 – 27 May 2004 Pro-government parties: Agrarian Party or AP [Mikhail SHIMANSKY]; Belarusian Communist Party or KPB [leader NA]; Belarusian Patriotic Movement (Belarusian Patriotic Party) or BPR [Nikolai ULAKHOVICH, chairman]; Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus [Sergei GAYDUKEVICH]; Party of Labor and Justice [Viktor SOKOLOV]; Social-Sports Party [Vladimir ALEXANDROVICH]; Opposition parties: 10 Plus Coalition [Alyaksandr MILINKEVICH], includes: Belarusian Party of Communists or PKB [Syarhey KALYAKIN]; Belarusian Party of Labor (unregistered) [Aleksandr BUKHVOSTOV, Leonid LEMESHONAK]; Belarusian Popular Front or BPF [Vintsyuk VYACHORKA]; Belarusian Social-Democratic Gramada [Stanislav SHUSHKEVICH]; Green Party [Oleg GROMYKO]; Party of Freedom and Progress (unregistered) [Vladimir NOVOSYAD]; United Civic Party or UCP [Anatol LYABEDKA]; Women's Party "Nadezhda" [Valentina MATUSEVICH, chairperson]; Other opposition includes: Belarusian Social-Democratic Party Nardonaya Hromada or BSDP NH [Alyaksandr KOZULIN, chairman]; Christian Conservative BPF [Zyanon PAZNIAK]; Ecological Party of Greens [Mikhail KARTASH]; Party of Popular Accord [Sergei YERMAKK]; Republican Party [Vladimir BELAZOR] Economy GDP – per capita: purchasing power parity - $7,700 (2005 est.) Imports: $16.94 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.) Exports: $16.14 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.) Sources: CIA World Fact Book 2 9th COI Seminar Organised by the RDC - Ireland and UNHCR Dublin, 26 – 27 May 2004 Presentation by Dr. Elena Korosteleva-Polglase Lecturer in European Politics, Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth Is Belarus an Authoritarian Exception to the Transitional Experience of East Central Europe? Table of Contents INTRODUCTION OVERVIEW OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN BELARUS, 1990-2004 TOWARDS AN EXPLANATION OF AUTHORITARIAN REGIME IN BELARUS Personal factor of Lukashenko An Institutional Factor An International Factor The Media Public Opinion Introduction Western commentators sometimes refer to Belarus as ‘Europe’s last dictatorship’.1 This description is certainly an exaggeration. It nonetheless captures the unique situation in which Belarus has found itself as the target of consistent criticism and isolation on the part of international community for failing to meet what is recognised as international democratic standards. Fifteen years on, Europe is a different place: the Berlin Wall collapsed and the EU enlarged through that obliterating division between the West and the East. What once used to be the stronghold of socialism in Central Europe, is now eight qualified western style liberal democracies, with two more to join and the rest to become good neighbours and friends. Except for Belarus. It is seemingly the only country that has not changed and is exceptionally retrospective & isolationist amongst its neighbours. It is the country that has resurrected subbotniki, ideological commissars and involuntary graduate job assignments in fear of revoking diplomas. It is the country that has proved remarkably 1 See for example The Wall Street Journal Europe, 7 September 2001; BBC News, 10 September 2001 at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/116265.stm; The Times (UK), 16 November 2002; speech by US Senator John McCain at the International Republican Institute Conference on Democracy in North-eastern Europe, Riga, 6 February 2004 (text published on www.iri.org/sp-mccain-latvia.asp); 3 9th COI Seminar Organised by the RDC - Ireland and UNHCR Dublin, 26 – 27 May 2004 insensitive to external pressure and espouses authoritarian politics and a demagogue- leader. Finally, it is the country that is the pariah amongst its East European neighbours showing no aspiration for integration either with the EU, CoE or NATO. Here I shall undertake a (1) brief overview of political developments in Belarus and (2) will endeavour to provide some explanation to Belarus’s ‘exceptionalist politics’ from the five principal dimensions: (i) leadership; (ii) institutional; (iii) international; (iv) the media and (iv) finally, electoral to account for the non-conformity of Belarus’s affairs, now unique in the European context. Overview of political developments in Belarus, 1990-2004 International criticism of Belarus began in November 1996, when President Lukashenko organised a referendum (despite the objections of the Constitutional Court2) to amend the Constitution to establish a truly ‘super-presidential’ system. He had won the first Belarusian presidential elections in 1994 with 80% of the vote, defeating then Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich in what was internationally recognised as a free and fair contest. Thereafter, Lukashenko set out to undermine the credibility and the effective operation of the legislative and judicial branches of power, thereby weakening institutional checks and balances limiting presidential power. His first step was to sabotage the parliamentary elections of May 1995 (the first since the country gained independence in 1991) by that undermining the standing of parliament. As a result, due to insufficient turnout and other factors as many as four separate rounds of elections needed to be held for parliament to be able to finally convene in January 1996 ending a year of single-handed ruling of the President by decree. The elections were found by the OSCE to have fallen short of the Copenhagen commitments regarding political campaigning and recommended the clarification of electoral legislation and the provision of increased media access to political parties and candidates.3 Lukashenko combined the parliamentary elections with a referendum of consultative character on restoring of Soviet-era state symbols; granting Russian the status of an official language; increasing economic ties with Russia; and giving the President the power to dissolve Parliament. This was Lukashenko’s first use of a popular referendum as an instrument of capitalising on his personal popularity to remove institutional constraints on his power. His confrontation with the Parliament was exacerbated when he proposed another referendum to consolidate his de facto one- man rule by substantially strengthening the President’s powers and reducing those of the Parliament and the judiciary. Lukashenko’s initiative caused a serious political crisis: the Parliament refused to approve the organisation of such a referendum and started impeachment proceedings, accusing the President of attempting ‘an unconstitutional seizure of power.’4 The compromise was eventually reached between the Speaker Semyon Sharetsky and President Lukashenko with the mediation of Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin that parliament would withdraw its 2 On 4 November 1996, the Constitutional Court ruled that the results of such a referendum should be consultative (i.e. have no legal force). 3 ODIHR Activity Report 1995, p. 5. 4 Statement by then Speaker of the Belarusian Supreme Council Semyon Sharetsky, 22 November 1996. 4 9th COI Seminar Organised by the RDC - Ireland and UNHCR Dublin, 26 – 27 May 2004 petition for the President’s impeachment and Lukashenko would accept that the referendum would not be legally binding. This upset a lot of deputies, and in the end caused Lukashenko to withdraw his concession. Indeed, he succeeded in convincing the electorate, which voted in favour of the proposed constitutional amendments with 71%. The main features of the constitutional amendments adopted in November 1996 were that the President gained the right to dissolve the Parliament, to call referenda, to issue decrees with the force of law, to hire and fire Ministers without parliamentary approval, to appoint six members (half) and a Chairman of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, and an eighth of the upper house of Parliament. The Parliament became bicameral with the creation of an upper house consisting of presidential and local government appointees, which weakened the influence of the directly elected lower chamber. Moreover, the size of the