News Outlets Prepare For Wild Election Harvest

Michael Hedges August 5, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

Elections always get attention; from those in power, those seeking such and news outlets assigned to the observational task. All elections are, thus, consequential. As such, candidates and their surrogates craft important messages to persuade and, maybe, excite the electorate. In more recent times those messages have turned to raising anxieties and uncertainties. Hope battles fear, over and over.

There will be presidential elections in Belarus this weekend (August 9). The former Soviet state has held several over the past quarter century. Alexander Lukashenko has always won. Election day “will conclude its most contentious, openly dirtiest, and toughest presidential campaign ever,” wrote independent Russian news portal Meduza (August 4).

President Lukashenko has often been referred to as “Europe’s last dictator.” Actually, he gave that title to himself in a 2012 interview with Reuters (November 27, 2012). He has never been at a loss for words. News outlets have dutifully reported each and every one; loyal state media choosing one interpretation, the scant independent Belarusian and interested foreign media outlets casting competing views.

Detaining, arresting and beating journalists and opposition candidates, typical of authoritarians, has continued apace in Belarus. On one day in July, reported the Belarus Association of Journalists, via Human Rights Watch (July 30), more than a dozen journalists and media workers covering political rallies were scooped up by police. One was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) correspondent Anton Trafimovich was grabbed by “6 or 7 men, 2 in riot gear.” He was beaten, nose broken, then driven to a police station and, bloody, released. Also picked up by the same crew was BelaPAN news agency reporter Violetta Savchits. BelaPAN is independent, highly regarded and its reporters and editors are regularly harassed.

Reporting by foreign news media has attracted the attention of President Lukashenko, who would prefer reporting to fit the campaign message. “There is no need to wait for any end of the electoral campaign, he said at a government meeting (July 22), quoted by Reuters (July 23). “Expel from here if they do not comply with our laws and call people to the Maidans. Let them go into the field where there is really a battle going on today, a struggle for the harvest.”

Agriculture is close to President Lukashenko’s heart as his job before political was running a collective farm. Maidan refers to the Kyiv, Ukraine central square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti - Independence Square)) where tens of thousands gathered between November 2013 and February 2014 to protest rampant government corruption. A exit settlement was eventually negotiated with President Viktor Yanukovych and he fled, forthwith, to the Russian Federation. The thought of another “Maidan” gives Eastern European dictators shivers of fear.

During the last few weeks, coincident with the unannounced arrival of Russian mercenaries, several opposition candidates have either been detained or otherwise blocked from participating. Among them, busted in May, was blogger and political activist Sergei Tikhanovsky. His wife, former English teacher Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, registered in his place. Her campaign gatherings have drawn huge crowds and support, aided by social media, has coalesced. It has been another surprise for President Lukashenko.

"I don’t think they took her seriously and didn’t expect that the other two most prominent political campaigns would throw their support behind her," said Freedom House Eurasia program manager Sofya Orlosky to Euronews (August 5). To upset her campaign rallies this week, the former collective farm manager brought in tractors to dig up the stadium grounds in two towns where they were to be held, citing “urgent” repair work, thus forcing removal of participants. Supporters of Mrs Tikhanovskaya seem undeterred. President Lukashenko ordered reserve military troops to assemble the day after the election at the border with the Russian Federation.

“If we have some 20,000 people (protesting) on election day, then it is possible that the resources he has at his disposal, by which I mean the Interior Ministry, will be sufficient to disperse the crowd,” said Valer Tsapkala, one of the delisted candidates, to RFE/RL (August 5). “But if we have 100,000 people out, Lukashenko will simply board a plane and fly away somewhere.”

Early voting began this week (August 4). For the first time OSCE election monitors will not on hand, formal invitation not received. If no candidate achieves more than 50% of the vote, a second round will be held in two weeks. Several observers believe President Lukashenko will announce sometime Sunday (August 9) that he won 70% of the vote, just like last time.

See also...

• Hot Topics - Media and Election Campaigns

• Hot Topics - Media in Belarus