MIXED SIGNALS FOR TSIKHANOUSKAYA (PART I)

Back in January, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya had her first official meeting with Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the time I remarked that the meeting helped her to 'assert her office's political relevance.' As to whether the relationship could really develop into more productive cooperation, I was sceptical; given Ukraine's immediate war needs, I doubted its willingness to invest in a relationship with Belarusians who wield only limited influence in Belarus itself.

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Public domain image.

Contrary to my expectations, the Ukrainian authorities have continued to cultivate their ties with Tsikhanouskaya and the exiled Belarusian opposition. This has coincided with Kyiv adopting a firmer stance towards the government in Minsk. In particular, Ukraine sounded the alarm recently about military movements inside the Belarusian border, warning that Belarusian forces could join Russia's war effort under renewed pressure from the Kremlin.

At the same time, a recent round of voting to the exiled Belarusian democratic movement's quasi-parliament, the Coordination Council, can hardly be deemed a success. Only a tiny proportion of Belarusians took part in the ballot, suggesting limited interest in the institution and a reflection of broader disillusionment among Belarusians, either inside or outside the country, about the prospects for change any time soon. Whilst there are some significant considerations to take into account when assessing the vote, including a cyberattack affecting the voting platform and the political risks voters exposed themselves to, these are not fully persuasive explanations for the low turnout.

Given these contradictory developments affecting Tsikhanouskya – support from Ukraine contrasted with limited participation in the democratic movement's latest election – is her political position strengthening or weakening?

Every vote counts

The case against Tsikhanouskaya should begin with the Coordination Council election held over seven days in mid-May. Tsikhanouskaya established the Coordination Council for the Transfer of Power in August 2020, shortly after that year's rigged presidential election. It functions as an independent body but is part of a network of institutions that Tsikhanouskaya sits at the centre of.

That the Coordination Council has endured till this day is impressive, although these days it is less about preparing for a transition of power. Whilst it has developed policies for a smooth transition to democracy in the future, it is more actively involved in lobbying on issues affecting the diaspora. To that end, its continued engagement with European intergovernmental organisations has bolstered its international image and its claims of being the formal representative organ of pro-democracy Belarusians (it operates alongside Tsikhanouskaya's office and the United Transitional Cabinet, established in 2022, which presents itself as a government in exile).

In the recent Coordination Council election, the fourth in its history, a modest 2,113 people voted. It is understandable that few Belarusians living in their country took part in the online vote, given the obvious risks involved: there were publicised arrests of individuals who allegedly voted in the election. But considering that an estimated half a million Belarusians left the country after 2020, let alone the pre-2020 diaspora, the number who voted amounts to a tiny fraction of the diaspora at best. During the last elections to the Council in 2024, more than 6,000 Belarusians voted.

Defenders of the vote will point out that Belarusian émigrés, like those inside the country itself, see participation as risky. The Belarusian authorities have designated the Coordination Council, as well as every group that put forward candidates for election, as 'extremist formations'. This means that voters could face prosecution for 'participating in' or 'cooperation with' an extremist formation (covered by Article 361 of the Criminal Code of Belarus). Émigrés do not want to bring harm on their relatives inside Belarus, nor do they want to risk the Belarusian authorities bringing charges against them should their participation be discovered.

Moreover, the online vote was briefly disrupted by a denial-of-service cyberattack, which most blamed on the Belarusian state. It served as a reminder that the Belarusian authorities were not ignoring the election. No prospective voter could be confident in the security of the vote however robust the IT systems might be. Nevertheless organisers adapted their systems to deal with the cyberattack and it appears that most people who wanted to vote were able to do so.

Other challenges

The argument that people were unwilling to vote because they feared the potential consequences only goes so far. The leaders of the democratic movement understood that they were asking people to take a risk, but in organising an election they clearly expected a significant number of people to vote. The turnout was too small to attribute it to 'the fear factor' alone.

Compare it to the thousands who took part in a Freedom Day rallies on 28 March, fully aware the Belarusian state has opened criminal cases against citizens for participating in Freedom Day marches in recent years. Belsat reported that 'several thousand Belarusians' joined the Warsaw march, which is consistent with the scale suggested by photographs of the event. There were smaller gatherings in Vilnius, Berlin and other cities which easily suggest more people were willing to go out on the streets that day than voted in the Coordination Council election (though admittedly not everyone who joined Freedom Day events will have been Belarusian and eligible to vote).

Similarly, the argument that its success or failure of the Coordination Council is separate from that of Tsikhanouskaya's office seems dubious. Tsikhanousakaya's chief adviser, Franak Viachorka, argued that her office has 'no connection' to the council, but it was her creation and her office cooperates closely with it. If she claims leadership of the democratic movement she must surely accept responsibility for its representative institutions.

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