Thoughts about Belarus and Poland

 As I have been predicting for a while, Belarus has become the focus for world attention. Lukashenko's faked election result has provoked massive popular discontent with people taking to the street, braving violent aggression from Lukashenko's security apparatus.

What next?

After Poland's presidential election, Poles didn't take to the streets. The incumbent Duda won; a man for whom I have little respect given that he has little agency in his own right and is an evident marionette of Poland's real leader - the divisive and authoritarian Kaczyński. But I accept his victory. It was a tight victory that without the endless bile of a party-controlled state broadcaster might have ended with a different result. Yet I accept the result and will wait out Duda's next term in office.

Not watching any TV or reading any Polish newspapers, my political observations are based on my journeys around Poland. In rural Mazowsze, there's no doubt that there were more posters for Duda up on fences, in windows, on balconies, than for all the other candidates put together. The Polish Catholic church (Church of Poland?) had an important role too in convincing the faithful to vote for a 'conservative'.

The final result of the second round of voting, 51% to 49% was tighter than Brexit, and like the Brexit vote was essentially a referendum.

Many Poles were bitterly disappointed by the result. I suspect that like me, after a few minutes' ranting about the river of shit that poured out of TV sets poisoning the brains of rural simpletons, I calmed down. It's over, I live with it.

Why didn't that happen in Belarus?

Because the situation in Poland was transparent. It was clear from the outset that it would be a knife's edge result. We could see from the streets, from conversations, that Poland is a tightly polarised society, and that the election could easily go either way.

In Belarus, people had had enough. After 26 years of Lukashenko in charge, the nation is going nowhere. Human aspirations and human potential are stultified. The economy is poorly; GDP per capita is about 55% of what it is in Poland. Lukashenko was one of the few world leaders to ignore and play down the risk of Covid-19, leading to an infection rate that's eleven times higher than that in Poland (assuming the figures are real). Belarusians can peer across their borders into the EU; they can see Poland, Lithuania and Latvia and their ever-increasing prosperity, progress and improved infrastructure, better shops, and healthier economies.

The result is that the vast majority of Belarusians demanded change on Sunday. Opposition candidate Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya (Wow! Google Blogger not underlining her name with a squiggly red line!) was clearly set to win with a thumping majority. I followed events on Twitter closely, observing numerous journalists, analysts and academics with knowledge of what was going on. It was clear from the polling stations where the results were given (including diplomatic posts abroad) that Ms Tsikhanouskaya should win. A film-clip showing a portly middle-aged lady in a floral-pattern dress leaving a polling station from an upper-story window via a ladder, with a sack of ballot papers, said it all - Lukashenko was doing everything he could to fake the result.

Had he said that he won with a Duda-style 51.03% share of the popular vote, and that Ms Tsikhanouskaya had, say 40% with the rest sharing the remainder, there might have been more acceptance of the result. But no. The official exit poll showed 79.7%, the final result was 80.08% for Lukashenko. Yet internet polling in preceding months showed his support not even reaching 7%. And people knew that.

Belarusians were aware that there would be dirty tricks played at a massive scale, but there was widespread revulsion, and anger, at the crass way that their vote had been stolen, that their will had been overridden, and that there was no more to look forward to. Just another five years of marasm.

So taking to the street and striking was the only solution.

The goons we have seen on footage coming out of Minsk and other Belarusian cities are counting on Lukashenko to be there for them, as they are supporting him. Things will change. Unlike Poland in 1956, 1970, 1976 and 1981, this revolution is being televised. Millions (literally!) of smartphone cameras in the hands of ordinary citizens are recording the militiamen, the OMON, the Spetsnaz and other military and paramilitary formations as they mete out brutality to people standing in the streets to protest the stolen election. They surely know that they will be brought to book for their actions in August 2020. They should know that they will fail, and when the historical tipping point is reached, there will be no place for them in a democratic Belarus.

This time last year:
One man went to mow

This time three years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time four years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time seven years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time eight years ago:
Kraks and back in a day by train 

This time nine years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time ten years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 11 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 12 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion