On January 19, 2004 six leading political parties of the Republic of Belarus - United Civil Party, Belarusian People's Front, Belarusian Social Democratic Hradama, the Belarusian Party of Communists, Belarusian Labor Party and Belarusian Green Party - alongside with more than 200 non-government organizations and associations formed the People’s Coalition «5+». It is a major victory of all pro-democratic forces in Belarus. The Coalition of ideologically different parties is based on the fundamentals that any civilized political force should support: human rights and freedoms, sovereignty of the country and democracy. We are to bring democracy and the rule of law first before we argue about policy differences. The Coalition came out with the list of 220 people who will run for the parliamentary elections in autumn 2004. The list includes not just members of political parties but the representatives of education, cultural and business communities. The Coalition is planning to hold 110 campaigns in each constituency and one national campaign that will promote its the common program.  

The misperception of the Belarusian social economic model and its political management is quite wide spread both in the east and West. Lukashenko is claimed to get the best of the two worlds: socialism and capitalism. On the one hand he prevented formation of overpowering local oligarchs or robber barons as it were. He did not let “public assets” to be unfairly distributed among representatives of nomenclature and the underworld. On the other hand he managed to build an effective social security system. Of course it does not have resources like those of Germany or France. But still many people believe that this is an adequate response to systemic challenges of a transitional state. These are dangerous myths that are based either on lack of information and deep analysis or on official statistics and reports that resemble rather propaganda tools than objective evaluation of the system. So let’s see how fair, secure, stable, feasible and economically effective is the Belarusian model.  

After breakup of the Euro-Asian system of centralized planning and decision making 27 new independent states were formed. The Republic of Belarus inherited from the Soviet Union relatively developed production, transportation, telecommunication and education infrastructure. Many industrial enterprises (tractor plant, truck plant, meat processing plants, TV and refrigerator plants etc.) were built to target the Soviet Union market or the whole socialist world. According to Soviet quality standards many Belarusian goods were quite competitive on that market provided there was no market price at all. Distribution of goods and capital was done along the lines of Communist party decisions rather than consumer and entrepreneur preferences. Information distortions for effective market-based production and investment were so big that the only rationality that existed was the rationality of arbitrary decisions of few authorized institutions (for example Gosplan, Gossnab branch ministries). At the same time rational expectations were quite easy to form as the framework of the centralized decision making process operated under quite rigid rules. The system was close to implementing the hypothetical maxim of economics – “all other factors being equal”.  

Corruption Perception Index 2003 score: 4.2, 53 place out of 133 countries Bribe Payer Index 2002 score: not surveyed

On October 2, 2002 the president passed the decree № 500 “On the state program to intensify fight with corruption for the period of 2002 – 2006”

On May 26, 2003 the law “On ratification of Convention on criminal responsibility for corruption” № 199-З was put into force.

On November 5, 2003 the Council of Ministers passed the Resolution № 1471 “On adoption of the plan of activities to counteract corruption in state bodies”.

Decree of the president №122 as of March 1, 2004 “On signing by the Republic of Belarus the Convention of the United Nations against corruption”.

Decree of the president № 75 as of February 13, 2004 “On adoption the state program of strengthening fight against corruption in 2004 – 2005”.

Uneasy anticipation, a sense of foreboding and the hope-crashing doom accompanied the parliamentary election and referendum campaign in Belarus. Everybody pretty much knew the results of both the referendum and the parliamentary elections long in advance. On October 17, it became obvious that the elections and the referendum have been rigged. The scale of violations has been unprecedented. The people felt cheated and depressed.  

People usually succeed if they undertake goal-directed actions based on facts of reality. They call them facts if they are tested by experience and proved by life. Major political and economic decisions made by policy makers on the highest level of state power must be based on scientific facts and theories. Some people think otherwise. For them their wishes are horses. They tend to make decisions riding on them and ignoring direct and unintended consequences. They are whim worshippers as they blink at facts of reality. They do not believe what they see. Pictures of their fevered imagination, caprices and feelings are tools to learn reality. If you keep in mind that most of key decision makers in Belarus including Mr. A. Lukashenko (his term of office expired on July 20, 1999) were brought up in socialist educational institutions and they derive the meaning of concepts of “fairness”, “rule of law”, “private property”, “human rights” and “norms of social behavior” from Marxist and other collectivist theories you find it easy to understand why Belarus is still an European outcast. Belarussian authoritarian rulers ignore the international information context and facts of reality as they contradict their norms of justice, equality and brotherhood.  

Acid smell of the USSR is in the air. The pattern of neo-planned economy and authoritarian rule has been quite popular in Belarus during the last 4 years. President Lukashenko set the goal for the end of the first millennium – to reach 1990 level of industrial production, the best year for Belarus within the Soviet Union. It does not matter whether there will be demand for the products of dilapidated plants and factories and whether anybody will be willing to pay cash for them. Evidently the goal is not economic but pure political and ideological. Power-hungry malefactors both in Russia and Belarus declared Slavic national revival as their ultimate goal. It is done on a solid anti-western base for the unification and aggressive policy of the new formation. Slavic leaders keep on talking about the third way as a social economic model to build. They take many elements of the European model of Welfare-warfare State.  

Authoritarian dictatorship has been established in Belarus in the result of the November 1996 coup d’etat. President Lukashenko carried it out in the form of the national referendum. It was a total fraud. Special commission of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Belarus analysed and investigated the activities of President and issued a report on 80 pages. It says that Lukashenko violated 130 articles of the Constitution and other normative acts including Criminal Code. In response to this investigation a criminal case was opened and Chairman of the Commission Deputy of the Supreme Council Victor Gonchar was brought to the public prosecutor’s office by force. His flat was searched. He was accused of spreading slander on the head of the state.

I am grateful for this opportunity to bring the situation in Belarus back to the attention of the House. This is the third time that I have raised the subject in such a debate, but I make no apology for that. The oppressed people of Belarus rely on us to give them the voice that they are denied in their own country. In July last year and July 2000, I outlined the condition of what was, and sadly remains, the most authoritarian of European countries. Since then, the position has got worse.

If it didn’t actually exist, it really would be amusing, even charming. A small chunk of the old USSR ruled over by a popularly elected meglomaniac seemingly determined to prove that Glasonst and Peristrioka could have redeemed the Soviet system. Old ladies out in their Brezhnev-era best, shopping in state stores packed with goods, while the TV offers daily updates on the successes of the current harvest campaign and the social implosion of other former Soviet republics. A place where a bottle of vodka costs a dollar, rent a few dollars more, where the hammer and sickle compete with Madonna and Sony, and the KGB – still called the KGB – plays cat-and-mouse with an opposition free enough to openly complain about the lack of democracy.