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Anna Kanopazkaja presses button. One time, two times, three times. Nothing happens in elevator shaft. That elevator is on strike today, because visit was long announced: is that coincidence or harassment?
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This Saturday in Sjarowa, a working-class district in south of Minsk, small group around politician now has to climb 14 floors on foot. In one of many record buildings she tries to make a door-to-door campaign with her assistants and a television team of opposition TV station BELSAT.
What 41-year-old does is courageous, wher it causes something or changes in Belarus, is questionable. It is unacceptable that local elections on 18 February will be free and fair. In Belarus, elections in recent years have never been in compliance with OSCE standards. The woman with lipstick, wool coat and lear boots still wants to promote her idea of a more liberal country. Since autumn 2016 she sits in Belarusian parliament. She is one of two opposition activists re, first for twelve years. But is Kanopazkaja more than a single friendly face in a large authoritarian system?
Their political commitment in Belarus is divided by opinions, even within opposition. It is just a fig leaf to keep EU happy and President Alexander Lukashenko International Clear, say one. It is an opportunity to bring at least a hint of pluralism into Parliament, ors say.
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Pavel Sewjarinez is one of critics of Anna Kanopazkaja. The opposition sits in a kebab at or end of city. Outside, darkness already lays over sky. Pop music is booming inside boxes. Good for a confidential conversation, he says seriously: “The regime may seem more liberal to outside world, but it has become more repressive inside.” The 41-year-old knows what he’s talking about. Alone 2017, he has been arrested four times because of participation in unauthorised protests. He was finally imprisoned for 15 days in October.
How free is Belarus?
Anna Kanopazkaja and Pavel Sewjarinez combines a question: how free and Democratic is Belarus in year 2018, this country which is often exaggerated in international press as Europe’s last dictatorship?
After a relatively liberal phase from 2014, regime has again strengned its control for about a year. This is mainly due to last year’s protests, which shook government for autocrat Lukashenko for a short time. In so-called spring of Belarus, thousands of people in whole country went to streets against so-called social parasite tax, a levy of approximately 180 euros a year, which should be paid by unemployed. The protests prevented this absurd new tax, but with a mix of compromises and hardship – wages were adjusted and demonstrations smashed – Lukashenko was able to restore old order on streets.
Since n, what happened to Sewjarinez has been system. Sewjarinez, who spent several years in Belarusian prisons, was imprisoned for a few days in 2017. No large-scale prison sentence to avoid risking Western sanctions again, but just enough to pull troublemakers out of traffic before planned protests and intimidate activists.
It is a narrow ridge, writes Minsk publicist Artem Schraibman, on which Lukashenko moves: repression inward, moderate opening to outside. But goal of “staying under Western radar”, as Schraibman puts it, has so far been achieved by Lukashenko.
Closely linked to great bror State of Russia, with which Belarus forms a Union, Lukashenko is also striving for good relations with West. This endeavour intensified especially after year 2014, year of horror in post-Soviet region, when Russian soldiers invaded Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea without a sovereign badge and unleashed a war in or Ukraine.
