MINSK, Belarus: Belarus held parliamentary elections yesterday without the main opposition parties, which boycotted the vote to protest the detention of political prisoners and opportunities for election fraud.
The election is to fill 110 seats in parliament, which long has been reduced to a rubber stamp by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the former Soviet nation since 1994. Western observers have criticized all recent elections in Belarus as undemocratic.
Lukashenko’s landslide win in a 2010 presidential election triggered a mass street protest that was brutally suppressed, and any rallies after the parliamentary vote would be certain to draw a similar harsh response.
“Elections in those states where they are boring and peaceful are a good thing for the people, not to mention for the government,” Lukashenko said after casting his ballot, his 7-year-old son by his side. But he warned that the calm would not last if the opposition mounted a protest.
“The main show here, as you understand, always begins after the elections, therefore anything can happen, although of course, God forbid that it does,” he said. “All sorts of political nonsense always occurs here after the results are announced.” The opposition had hoped to use this election to build support, but 33 out of 35 candidates from the United Civil Party were barred from television, while the state-owned press refused to publish their election programs.
“We are calling on voters to ... ignore and boycott this electoral farce,” said party leader Anatoly Lebedko. The other party that boycotted the vote was the Belarusian Popular Front.
About 40 candidates from communist and leftist groups critical of Lukashenko still ran, but they weren’t expected to make it into the parliament, which has been fully occupied by government loyalists since the last three opposition members lost their seats in 2004.
“Lukashenko has made the situation totally absurd, not even bothering to put a democratic facade on it,” said Vitaly Rymashevsky, who ran against Lukashenko in the 2010 presidential election. “He already knows the names of the new parliament members.” The president, who speaks about his critics with contempt, has said the opposition parties’ withdrawal from the vote reflects their weakness and shows they “are nobodies.” This judgment has been accepted by voters like Pyotr Rushailo, a 73-year-old retired military officer.
“I am sure that the people will support the government and we will get through our current difficulties,” he said. “The opposition only disrupts the normal work of the president and parliament, so I’m glad they are not taking part in the elections.” The United States and the European Union have imposed economic and travel sanctions on the Belarusian government over its crackdown on opposition groups and independent news media.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has fielded 330 observers for Sunday’s vote, but two monitors from the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly were denied entry to Belarus without explanation.
About 28 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots during the week ahead of the election, taking part in early voting that was strongly promoted by the authorities. Ballot boxes stood unguarded at polling stations for days, which observers described as a source of potential fraud.
“They compiled lists of those who took part in the early voting and may punish those who disobeyed,” said student Roman Gubarevich, who cast his ballot on Wednesday.
Lukashenko has intensified repression of the opposition since the 2010 presidential election, which triggered a mass protest against election fraud that was dispersed by police, who arrested about 700 people. Some are still in jail, including presidential candidate Nikolai Stankevich.
On Tuesday, plainclothes security officers beat an Associated Press photographer and briefly detained him along with seven other journalists as they covered a protest by four opposition activists calling for a boycott of the vote. The opposition activists have remained in custody.
An Australian television journalist was detained at the Minsk airport on Friday by authorities, who confiscated his camera, computer and all the material he had gathered during a week of reporting before the vote. The journalist, Amos Roberts of Australian SBS TV, left Belarus on Saturday, but left behind his equipment and it was not known whether it would be returned.
Given the relentless crackdown on dissent, observers don’t expect any significant post-election protests.
“The opposition was routed in the repressions that followed the presidential vote, and it has no energy for a useless struggle with a predictable outcome,” said Alexander Klaskovsky, an independent political analyst.
“It’s the most senseless campaign in a decade, which neither the people, the government nor the opposition want,” said Yaroslav Romanchuk of the Mises Foundation.
Belarus votes for new Parliament
Belarus votes for new Parliament
US senators visit key Ukrainian port city as they push for fresh sanctions on Russia
- The visit and the push for Congress to take up sanctions on Russia come at a crucial moment in the conflict
WASHINGTON: A delegation of US senators was returning Wednesday from a trip to Ukraine, hoping to spur action in Congress for a series of sanctions meant to economically cripple Moscow and pressure President Vladimir Putin to make key concessions in peace talks.
It was the first time US senators have visited Odesa, Ukraine’s third-most populous city and an economically crucial Black Sea port that has been particularly targeted by Russia, since the war began nearly four years ago. Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, Chris Coons, Richard Blumenthal and Sheldon Whitehouse made the trip. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis had planned to join but was unable to for personal reasons.
“One of the things we heard wherever we stopped today was that the people of Ukraine want a peace deal, but they want a peace deal that preserves their sovereignty, that recognizes the importance of the integrity of Ukraine,” Shaheen said on a phone call with reporters.
The visit and the push for Congress to take up sanctions on Russia come at a crucial moment in the conflict. Delegations for the two sides were also meeting in Switzerland for two days of US-brokered talks, but neither side appeared ready to budge on key issues like territory and future security guarantees. The sanctions, senators hoped, could prod Putin toward settling for peace, as the US has set a June deadline for settlement.
“Literally nobody believes that Russia is acting in good faith in the negotiations with our government and with the Ukrainians,” Whitehouse said. “And so pressure becomes the key.”
Still, legislation to impose tough sanctions on Russia has been on hold in Congress for months.
Senators have put forward a range of sanction measures, including one sweeping bill that would allows the Trump administration to impose tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports, which are crucial to financing Russia’s military. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has also advanced a series of more-targeted bills that would sanction China’s efforts to support Russia’s military, commandeer frozen Russian assets and go after what’s known as Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers being used to circumvent sanctions already in place.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has co-sponsored the Senate’s sweeping sanctions and tariff legislation, also released a statement during the Munich Security Conference this weekend saying that Senate Majority Leader John Thune had committed to bringing up the sanctions bill once it clearly has the 60 votes needed to move through the Senate.
“This legislation will be a game changer,” Graham said. “President Trump has embraced it. It is time to vote.”
Blumenthal, who co-sponsored that bill alongside Graham, also said there is bipartisan support for the legislation, which he called a “very tough sledgehammer of sanctions and tariffs,” but he also noted that “we need to work out some of the remaining details.” Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, have been opposed to President Donald Trump’s campaign to impose tariffs around the world in an effort to strike trade deals and spur more manufacturing in the US
In the House, Democrats are opposed to the tariff provisions of that bill. Instead, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, has proposed separate legislation that makes it more difficult for Trump to waive sanctions, but does away with the tariff provisions.
A separate bill, led by the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Gregory Meeks, would bolster US military support for Ukraine by $8 billion. Democrats currently need one more Republican to support an effort to force a vote on that bill.
Once they return to the US, the senators said they would detail how US businesses based in Ukraine have been attacked by Russia. The Democrats are also hoping to build pressure on Trump to send more US weapons to Ukraine. “Putin understands weapons, not words,” Blumenthal said.
Still, the lawmakers will soon return to a Washington where the Trump administration is ambivalent about its long-term commitments to securing peace in Ukraine, as well as Europe. For now, at least, they were buoyed by the conversations from their European counterparts and Republican colleagues.
“We and the Republican senators who were with us in Munich spoke with one voice about our determination to continue to support Ukraine,” Coons said.
