Lukashenka & Co.

Transitions Online, Czech Republic
25 Oct. 2004

Lukashenka is one of a kind. For years, that has perhaps been a
comforting thought for many. Comforting but also wrong, as the past
week has helped to make clear. Like a greyhound at a starter’s gun,
Pavel Borodin, a senior figure in a bilateral organization that seeks
to unify Russia and Belarus, said, “A third, a fourth, a fifth term
[for Russian President Vladimir Putin] is completely possible,” adding
for good measure, “The kind of power held by Putin and Lukashenka is
God-given.” And in Armenia, the governing parties felt the need to say
that President Robert Kocharian will not be doing a Lukashenka and
changing the constitution to serve a third term.

Of course, a few statements might change nothing, and Putin’s press
officer said that Borodin’s statement had “nothing in common with
reality.” But it would be foolish to dismiss this all as mere
speculative froth. Someone has thrown into play a ball that should
simply not be in play. If a constitution says a president can stand for
only two terms, there should not even be talk of a third term. But that
ball is now in play, and suddenly the rules of the game are in doubt.
And, increasingly, it seems that Putin and Kocharian do share the same
goal: a third term.

That highlights the main reason why such statements should not be
dismissed: they have all too much in common with reality. Borodin has
merely revived a topic that was the subject of much debate even before
Putin won a second term in April. In the Russian republics, the
occasional president, such as Bashkortostan’s Murtaza Rakhimov, has
sought an unconstitutional third term. Somehow, they found Russia’s
courts happy to oblige. Now, having stripped Russians of the right to
vote for governors and republican presidents, it seems perfectly
natural for the energetic 52-year-old Putin to take the next step and
extend his rule.

As for Kocharian, the writing is already on the wall. We have been
pointing at the wall for some time, warning last year, for example, of
the risk of Caesarism and, this year, of dictatorial tendencies.
Armenia finds itself torn between Russia and the West. On the
geopolitical front, that seems an unequal battle: Russia patrols
Armenia’s borders and owns much of its economy. Armenia’s battle
between Putin-style “managed democracy” and Western-style democracy
seems equally uneven.

A SCHOOL FOR AUTHORITARIANISM

Lukashenka was never really one of a kind. He always company.
Traditionally, Lukashenka has been bracketed with Central Asia’s
leaders. But seeing as a Central Asian who’d lost his compass
mistakenly helped make him seem comfortingly unusual and isolated.

There was even a time in the 1990s when, for all his obvious
dictatorial inclinations, Lukashenka could have been looked at as a
junior pupil in a school for would-be lifetime presidents. As well as
the Central Asians, there were Balkan leaders, men such as Albania’s
Sali Berisha, Bulgaria’s Zhelyu Zhelev, and Yugoslavia’s Slobodan
Milosevic, presidents who all contemplated changing the constitutions
to get themselves a third term in office. (Alija Izetbegovic, the late
Bosniak leader, could even be added to the list: he carried the title
“president of the presidency” throughout the war even though the
constitution said he could hold the title for at most two years.)

Indeed, the longevity of presidencies could be treated as a gauge of
how far a country has traveled on its road away from communism. Based
on this yardstick, a map in the late 1990s would have shown the Balkans
and Central Asia barely on the road yet and Belarus going backward
after Lukashenka’s emergence. Russia and Azerbaijan would have had
question marks over them, mainly because of the age and, increasingly,
the debility or senility (or both) of Russia’s Boris Yeltsin and
Azerbaijan’s Heidar Aliev. There would also have been question marks
over Georgia, though Eduard Shevardnadze could be given the benefit of
the doubt because Georgia’s political system was all too clearly deeply
fractious.

Now the same map would show that the Balkans have shot ahead but that
Belarus and Azerbaijan have joined Central Asia, with huge question
marks hanging over Armenia and Russia. Only Ukraine and Moldova seem to
be difficult pupils in the former Soviet Union’s school of
authoritarianism, another reason why Ukraine’s elections in a week’s
time and Moldova’s in four months’ time are so important.

In short, by this map, the transitions process is in retreat in the
former Soviet Union. A depressing thought after 12 years.

LIBERTY’S CALL

So what happened to the “transformational power of liberty,” as
President Bush would put it?

In Belarus in the 1990s, Lukashenka was perhaps a man for his time. He
achieved what neither Yeltsin nor Ukraine’s presidents achieved, which
was to lessen some of the pain of transition and to provide some
continuity. For years, then, he could claim to be a legitimate ruler,
if not a democratic ruler. Now, even his legitimacy is questionable
(independent opinion polls show his popularity is well below 50
percent), but it is too late: he already has power enough to do as he
wishes. The same process is perhaps underway in Russia: a strong leader
retains legitimacy for long enough to be able to assume overweening
powers.

Apologists for Central Asia’s leaders used to argue, and still do
sometimes, that they meet two of the basic requirements for democracy
laid out by political scientists–legitimacy and good governance. That
claim to intellectual legitimacy was always thin and in any case it
becomes thinner by the year. (Apologists for Armenia’s Kocharian can
surely produce no such arguments: he simply seems to like power too
much.)

But in one palpable and important way the Central Asians have enjoyed
legitimacy. Unfortunately, it is diplomatic legitimacy.

Just how dismal Western diplomacy can be was shown in the past two
weeks, when it emerged the British government had withdrawn its
outspoken ambassador in Tashkent, Craig Murray. The latest addition to
his list of diplomatically controversial statements was that “we [the
British government] are selling our souls for dross” when it uses
evidence extracted from suspected terrorists tortured by the Uzbek
authorities. His argument about “dross” seems barely contestable: faced
with Uzbek torturers (and, as some have experienced, the possibility of
being boiled alive), most of us would say whatever was asked of us.
Fear, it seems, puts principles to one side. But principles weren’t
much in evidence even before 9/11. That isn’t to say that they haven’t
been there. Perhaps those principles were articulated in quiet
diplomatic words out of public earshot. Sometimes there have been token
gestures and protests. But, after 12 years and with the situation
worsening, something new is needed.

There needs, for starters, to be the courage of conviction about the
virtues of democracy. Kyrgyzstan’s Askar Akaev recently accepted one
fundamental argument by giving Kyrgyz villagers unprecedented electoral
powers. Shame, of course, that Akaev still retains such huge powers in
other levels of government (and may, true to Central Asian type, extend
his reign), but the move is a powerful victory for the argument about
democracy’s economic virtues. Kyrgyzstan’s government has failed to
help the poor much; Akaev appears to have calculated that if he gives
the poor some power they can help themselves.

Clearly, then, in this past decade the “transformational power of
liberty” needed some better helping hands. What that helping hand
should do now is a tough call. But understanding the success of people
like Lukashenka would help. Challenging states on some long-standing
problems might help (just as we have argued that Russia needs to be
challenged about its role in the South Caucasus and Transdniester).
Saying a few blunt things while searching for some form of engagement,
as West Germany did in its Ostpolitik, would surely be better than
sacking ambassadors. Underpinning all of that has to be a basic
recognition of one thing: in many countries transition is going in the
wrong direction.

Perhaps one way we will know democracy has really left its hallmark on
the region’s political system is when half a dozen former leaders from
the region take to the lecture circuit, happily find a life outside
domestic politics, or simply enjoy some quiet twilight years. By this
measure, the Balkans and even Central Europe have some way to go.
Montenegro’s Milo Djukanovic, Slovenia’s Janez Drnovsek, and
Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic have all hopped from one top post to
another to remain in political life. Czech President Vaclav Klaus
extended his overextended political life last year thanks to a
controversial vote in parliament. Lithuania’s Rolandas Paksas jumped
from multiple premierships to the presidency, finally to be impeached
after allegations of over-coziness with the Russian underworld.

So is there a shining example in what we could perhaps dub the
Presidential Index of Transition? There is perhaps one. He appeared on
the front page of the **New York Times** on 24 October dedicating
himself to helping the environment and promoting a solution in
Chechnya. He has been doing the lecture circuit for years. He has shown
an admirable, almost incredible ability to transform himself. He has
even appeared in a McDonald’s advert.

His name is Mikhail Gorbachev. The father of transition, it seems,
still knows how to lead the way.