Page 54 - bne magazine September 2020 russia melting

54 Opinion
bne September 2020
MINSK BLOG:
Artem Shraibman asks: What kind of dialogue can save Belarus?
Ben Aris in Berlin
Well-known Belarusian journalist Artem Shraibman rejected international mediation and called on a multi-denominational council of religious leaders to mediate between the regime of Alexander Lukashenko and the opposition's Coordinating Council as the only practical way of ending Belarus’ political crisis.
The political columnist Shraibman wrote a widely read opinion piece in tut.by looking for a way out of the standoff that has developed between Lukashenko and the people.
“The current crisis – the most difficult in the history of independent Belarus – has no easy solution. The best of them is dialogue. All external players from the US State Department to the Kremlin are calling him. Everyone inside the country
is ready for a verbal dialogue. So what are we waiting for?” Shraibman asked.
The huge crowds that assembled for the March of the New Belarus demonstration on August 23 that attracted at least quarter of a million participants confirmed the mass rejection of the August 9 presidential election that officially was won by Lukashenko by a landslide.
However, despite results being rejected by the people as a blatant falsification and by the rest of the European community, Lukashenko has dug in and is relying almost entirely on the security forces to hang on to power.
Former English teacher and nominal victor in Belarus’ presidential election Svetlana Tikhanovskaya established a Coordinating Council to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power and set up an interim government before holding fresh elections. However, not only has Lukashenko refused to acknowledge the council, but a criminal case has been launched accusing the council members of trying to
usurp power.
As bne IntelliNews reported, two members of the council were arrested on August 24, strike leader Sergei Dilevsky and Olga Kovalkova, who was a prominent member of Tikhanovskaya campaign team.
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A standoff has developed between the Belarusian people who command the streets and cities, and the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, who is ensconced behind the barricades of the security forces. What can be done to break the deadlock?
A third member of the council, Nobel literature laureate Svetlana Alexievich, has been summoned by police for questioning in connection with the same criminal case.
Apart from the Coordinating Council the mass protests have no real leader nor any demands other than that Lukashenko should step down and new elections should be called.
At loggerheads
The main problem is the two sides in this fight – the Coordinating Council headed by the nominal winner of the elections Tikhanovskaya and Lukashenko – are not talking and are unlikely to find enough common ground to start talking.
Lukashenko is stubbornly sticking to the fiction that he won the elections and Shraibman argues that he may genuinely believe he won. I met him once in the noughties in an intimate press conference with a select handful of foreign correspondents and he came over as completely bat-shit crazy.
“Lukashenka is confident in the steadfastness of his position, and, perhaps, he is also sure that the majority voted for him. The fact that we understand that this is an illusion does not make his conviction weaker. Lukashenka lives in his own information world, people dissatisfied with him live
in another,” Shraibman says.
Shraibman argues one of the ways to bring Lukashenko to the table is if his entourage come to believe his is a lost cause.
“One way or another, the moment will come when Lukashenka or enough people in his close circle will realise that the
risks from dialogue with opponents are less than the risks from trying to shove the paste back into the tube. Or their patriotism will outweigh the desire to keep power in their hands forever,” Shraibman opines.
It is impossible to say what conditions will bring about this moment; Shraibman offers some possibilities like a bank crisis or the depletion of foreign exchange reserves (Belarus only has $8bn in reserves or 2.5 months of import cover, which is