(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Authoritarian regimes die in unique ways, and their speed of decline is hard to predict. It is clear, though, that the end has begun in Belarus.
Ignoring his strongest and most unexpected challenger in 26 years, populist President Alexander Lukashenko is sticking firmly to the Soviet strongman script. He has claimed yet another sweeping election victory: Official figures after Sunday’s vote suggest an implausible 80% of the vote, while his charismatic, crowd-pleasing opponent apparently garnered barely 10%. Unarmed protesters, meanwhile, are being silenced with stun grenades, rubber bullets and internet blackouts.
Repression will no doubt continue after a violent night in the capital Minsk, but demonstrations are spreading across the country, fuelled by social media and galvanized in a way that will be far harder to contain than in 2010. There are as-yet unverified photographs and videos on Telegram and Twitter suggesting some polling stations published results that show the opposition well ahead. It is still unclear what Europe and the U.S. will do. More brutality will almost certainly mean fresh Western sanctions, and more influence for Moscow, which has already congratulated Lukashenko.
Whatever does follow, the fate of Belarus’s collective farm boss-turned-autocrat is being accelerated by his own mistakes. This offers a cautionary tale for his post-Soviet rivals including Russian President Vladimir Putin, who’s aware of his own fragility and facing persistent unrest.
The first basic error Lukashenko made was to underestimate his opposition. He failed to notice the significant change in those willing to stand against him: Rather than old-school rivals, the 2020 election saw the emergence of privileged figures as opponents, who had plenty to lose by standing. Viktor Babariko, an ex-banker whose candidacy garnered some 435,000 signatures, was detained in June with his son and accused of financial crimes, which he has disputed. Another candidate was Valery Tsepkalo, a former ambassador to the U.S. who helped to found the country’s tech hub. He fled to Moscow.
Lukashenko’s constant denigration of women, whom he has said cannot bear the burden of presidential responsibility, meant that he also dramatically underestimated Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. A 37-year-old former teacher, she stood at the last minute after her husband, video blogger and would-be candidate Sergei Tikhanovsky, was arrested in May. She was allowed to stand, on the premise that she posed little threat. As late as Sunday, after her weeks of rousing unprecedented rallies across Belarus, Lukashenko dismissed her as not even worthy of repression.
The second mistake was the most egregious, when it comes to the rules of populist autocracies: His officials overdid the electoral outcome. Belarus has not had a free and fair ballot since the mid-1990s, but the scale of early voting — which makes tampering easier — and the size of the ultimate landslide in Lukashenko’s favor were over the top, even for Belarus. In the context of the crowds garnered by Tikhanovskaya, which people could see for themselves in person and on video, the official results are simply too far-fetched, especially when combined with a dramatic show of force and the absence of Western observers.
Many of those marching on Sunday evening after official exit polls favored the incumbent, were doing so for the first time. Ostentatious military hardware and brute force did away with any pretense of electoral legitimacy.
Underpinning all of this is Lukashenko’s failure to respect the social contract that kept him in power. Belarus reduced poverty in the post-Soviet period, but the command economy has been stagnating for years, privatization has been too slow and subsidies to keep state enterprises afloat are inflating the debt burden. His promise last week to double the average salary within five years is laughable. Combined with the dramatic mishandling of coronavirus, instances like the failed tax on the unemployed and fading Russian subsidies, that unspoken agreement looks badly broken.
Popular revolutions are easier in theory than in practice in autocratic regimes like Belarus, or even Russia, where power relies on the support of elites, specifically the security forces. Street scenes in Minsk suggest the latter remain onside as does, crucially, Moscow, which is unwilling to have a burgeoning democracy on its doorstep. Even so, the breadth of protests and a stumbling economy will make Lukashenko’s grip harder to maintain. The man who was happy to call himself Europe’s last dictator may have claimed his last victory.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Clara Ferreira Marques is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering commodities and environmental, social and governance issues. Previously, she was an associate editor for Reuters Breakingviews, and editor and correspondent for Reuters in Singapore, India, the U.K., Italy and Russia.
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