Presidential election in Belarus 2006
In the presidential elections in Belarus in 2006 , the Belarusian president, Aljaksandr Lukashenka , who has been in office since 1994, was allowed to run for the second time after a referendum criticized in the West on a change in the law that would allow him to have further legislative periods . The strongest contender was Alyaksandr Milinkevich .
choice
In the run-up to the election there was criticism of the unequal electoral conditions by the opposition . In the week leading up to the presidential election, the government stepped up its crackdown on critics, which also closed several newspapers or prevented them from selling. According to some media reports, the president's security apparatus threatened to crack down on any protest rallies with the utmost severity. Opponents of the regime are being persecuted as "terrorists". They face the death penalty . In a televised address, Lukashenka threatened foreigners in particular that anyone who tried “to do something in our country ” would have their head “ torn off like a duckling ”. The government rejected the accusation that the Belarusian opposition was being massively suppressed. The German Tagesschau quoted from a statement: "The Foreign Ministry of Belarus is shocked that the OSCE passed its verdict before election day without waiting for the verdict of its observers." According to an OSCE employee, the reason for the early criticism was the events in the Week before the election. Several OSCE election observers were also banned from entering Belarus.
The USA and the EU announced sanctions in the event of irregularities as a result of the vote.
Ballot box
The polls took place on Sunday, March 19, 2006. According to the official final result, Lukashenka won the election with 83.0% of the vote. The strongest opposition candidate was Alyaksandr Milinkevich with 6.1% of the vote. A total of 92.6% of those eligible to vote took part in the election.
| candidate | Share of votes |
|---|---|
| Aljaksandr Lukashenka | 83.0% |
| Alyaksandr Milinkevich | 6.1% |
| Syarhej Hajdukewitsch | 3.5% |
| Alyaksandr Kasulin | 2.2% |
| total | 94.8% |
| Others (5.2%): abstentions / invalid votes | |
Reactions
Even before the official end of the election, most of the state opinion institutes announced an election result of 80 to 85%. The following night there was a peaceful protest of around 10,000 people against the election and President Lukashenka on October Square in the capital Minsk . The organizer and rival candidate Milinkevich declared that he did not accept the result and asked for a re-election. According to President Lukashenka, there were no facts for election fraud ; he openly referred to the opposition as terrorists and threatened with consequences. The intelligence chief threatened the demonstrators that they could be considered terrorists, and the government did not hesitate to pronounce long prison terms or even death sentences for them.
On the evening of March 20, the opposition again called for protests to demonstrate against the falsification of the election results . Despite the ban on assemblies and fear of reprisals, around 5,000 people followed the call. An estimated 500 stayed in tents overnight. About 20 were arrested while leaving the square on the morning of March 21st. According to the Wesna human rights organization , there were 108 arrests. Some ambassadors and vice-ambassadors of Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Latvia symbolically showed their solidarity with the mostly young demonstrators in a short, unofficial visit. On the third night, 1,000 people demonstrated. The protests were modeled on the so-called Orange Revolution , which, after the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2004, achieved new elections and a change in government by peaceful means.
On the night of March 24th, the protesters' camp was evacuated by the police within 15 minutes.
The protests continued around noon on March 25th. Around 3,000 Lukashenko opponents gathered again for a demonstration despite the ban. Milinkevich had already pointed out the historical importance of March 25, 1918 as the day of independence for the country and wanted to set a symbolic sign with a large demonstration. But Oktoberplatz was cordoned off at both entrances by anti-riot units . Most of the demonstrators then gathered in the nearby Janka Kupala Park , where the crowd around Milinkevich grew to an estimated 7,000 people. Previously, a cordon had been broken by several hundred demonstrators, whereupon security bars were put up. The police told the crowd to go home because the demonstration was not authorized. There were occasional brawls between police officers and demonstrators, but overall the situation remained calm. The authorities said that the opposition politician Aljaksandr Kasulin and the spokesman for the opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich, Pavel Mascheika , were in custody. Kasulin had previously called for an assault on a prison in which government critics were in custody. After that, the situation between the demonstrators and the police worsened for a short time. This also led to criticism from Milinkevich: "That was a provocation that came in very handy for the state." He rejected the report by the Russian news agency Interfax about his arrest.
International reactions
The OSCE with its 500 election observers described the election as undemocratic in advance and criticized the unfair conditions for the opposition parties.
The Russian government assessed the election as "evidence of the fact that voters trust our course towards further growth of the prosperity of the Belarusian people". Vladimir Putin congratulated Lukashenka on his re-election. Russia accused the OSCE of inciting unrest in the country. Foreign Minister Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax , the OSCE was biased towards the election and did not take a neutral position.
The USA announced the following day that they would not accept the result of the election and called for new elections.
After the protests in Belarus were ended by the police, the European Union and the USA increased their pressure on the Belarusian leadership. The heads of state and government of the EU decided on sanctions against President Lukashenka at their summit meeting. The Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said that, among other things, entry bans would be examined for those who had falsified the election. According to EU representatives, the freezing of foreign assets is also under discussion. The EU also pledged further support to the opposition in Belarus.
background
For example, one commentator wrote about the reasons for the weak opposition
“Would you expect a European statesman under whose government real wages have risen steadily, most recently by 24% in the last 12 months, to be elected from office? And what if he also cut sales tax, stifled inflation, halved the number of people in poverty in the last seven years and avoided social tensions through the fairest income distribution in the region? "
Web links
- Lukashenko: Populist or election faker or both at the same time? (AG Peace Research at the University of Kassel )
- Belarusian election severely flawed due to arbitrary use of state power and restrictions on basic rights (OSCE report; Engl., Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Welt Online: Lukashenko threatens opponents with the death penalty , March 20, 2006
- ↑ Spiegel Online: "No comparison to Ukraine!" , March 21, 2006
- ↑ Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Belarus: СВЕДЕНИЯ об итогах выборов Президента Республики Беларусь ( Memento of May 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 19, 2011 ( Russian ).
- ↑ Welt Online: State power shows its true colors , March 25, 2006
- ↑ spiegel.de
- ↑ Jonathan Steele: Europe and the US decide the winner before the vote , in: theguardian.com March 10, 2006 (Engl.)
.svg)