The dawn of the past - parliamentary elections in Belarus

A FIRST step has been taken toward the re-establishment of the Soviet Union. Recent parliamentary elections in Belarus were accompanied by a referendum, which sought the approval of the Belarussian electorate for policies such as closer cooperation with Russia and the re-adoption of the old Soviet Belarussian flag and national seal. President Lukashenko also asked for, and received, approval for powers to dissolve parliament whenever he considered it to be acting unconstitutionally: that is to say, against his wishes. President Yeltsin welcomed the results of the referendum: and no doubt President Lukashenko is banking on a seat in the Politburo when it re-forms in due course.

In any case there was not much likelihood of a working parliament in Belarus for some time to come, thanks to an electoral process of Byzantine complexity. No candidate was permitted to appear on radio or television: and no candidate could be elected in the first round unless half of the registered voters in his constituency cast their votes and one candidate polled more than half of these votes. Since there was an average of ten candidates per constituency, these were conditions most unlikely to be met. The second, third, and even fourth rounds of voting are likely to drag on.

As to the referendum, the state-run television service -- there is no other -- did its best to ensure the correct result. President Lukashenko's principal opponents were revealed during a two-hour documentary film to be "fascists" -- a film repeated on the eve of the referendum, "by popular demand," according to a member of the Communist Party. No right of reply was considered necessary.

A propensity to mass murder is not something of which Communists in Minsk should lightly accuse their opponents. After all, one of the suburbs of the city is built over the mass grave of perhaps 200,000 "enemies of the people," shot by the Communists between 1937 and 1941. But such facts do not seem to have the moral significance for the people of the former Soviet Union that they have for outsiders. Many now remember the Brezhnev years as a golden age, though Brezhnev was in apostolic succession to the mass murderers. There may have been complete stagnation during his reign, but there was also some certainty about what each miserable day would bring. Even without undue pressure, many would have voted for a restoration of the status quo ante.

Most of the Western organizations monitoring the elections thought that, imperfect as they were, they represented a step toward democracy. To the contrary, they represented a flight from democracy, which was in part coerced, but in part a genuine expression of disgust with changes that have brought BMWs to the nomenklatura, but few other tangible benefits. As a messianic doctrine Communism is dead; but it lives on in the minds and hearts of innumerable people, whose demands on life have been so reduced by it that even a ration of poor-quality sausage can seem to them the highest possible good.

COPYRIGHT 1995 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group