Monitoring: The Coverage of the 2015 Presidential Election in the Belarusian Media (Final Report)

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Mon­i­tor­ing:  The Cov­er­age of the 2015 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion in the Belaru­sian Media

(17 August – 22 Octo­ber, 2015)

Final Report

Intro­duc­tion

Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry

Major Find­ings

State-owned Media

Direct Access

Cam­paign­ing for One Can­di­date

Inde­pen­dent Media

Assess­ment of the Elec­tion Process

Con­clu­sions

1. Intro­duc­tion

The report presents the find­ings of the mon­i­tor­ing of the 2015 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion cov­er­age in the Belaru­sian state run and inde­pen­dent media[1].

The mon­i­tor­ing aimed to raise the jour­nal­ist community’s and vot­ers’ aware­ness of:

– the impor­tance of com­pre­hen­sive and bal­anced cov­er­age of the elec­tion;

– the code of ethics in jour­nal­ism and inter­na­tion­al stan­dards that are indis­pens­able for cov­er­ing elec­tions;

–and jour­nal­ists’ duty to give vot­ers undis­tort­ed, impar­tial and com­plete infor­ma­tion about the elec­toral cam­paign, the can­di­dates’ agen­das and their sup­port­ers’ and oppo­nents’ opin­ions.

The mon­i­tor­ing focused on media items that were about the elec­toral cam­paign and pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates as well as oth­er polit­i­cal and non-polit­i­cal bod­ies which activ­i­ty dur­ing the elec­tion cam­paign was notice­able.[2] The items were analysed both quan­ti­ta­tive­ly and qual­i­ta­tive­ly[3]. We also report instances of par­tial, incom­pre­hen­sive or biased cov­er­age that does not meet pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards, breach­es ethics in jour­nal­ism, and depar­ture from inter­na­tion­al­ly accept­ed stan­dards of report­ing on elec­tions.[4]

The mon­i­tor­ing was held by the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ).

2. Exec­u­tive Sum­ma­ry

Con­trary to the 2010 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, this time the state-owned media gave more atten­tion to the elec­tion relat­ed top­ics. How­ev­er, the actu­al pro­por­tion of air time and space allo­cat­ed to the con­tenders did not change. The incum­bent still enjoyed a dom­i­nant posi­tion.

All the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls got free access to state-owned media cho­sen by the CEC to address the elec­torate direct­ly and present their agen­das. These media did not do much to draw large audi­ences, as the address­es were not adver­tised in advance and TV guides did not give the names of the can­di­dates.

At the same time the state-owned media active­ly pro­mot­ed a num­ber of pro-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions that endorsed the incum­bent. As for his oppo­nents and vot­ers sup­port­ing them, they were unable to make their voice heard in the state-owned media.

The elec­tion cov­er­age had no dra­mat­ic sus­pense. The state-owned media cam­paigned for one of the pres­i­den­tial run­ners, giv­ing no voice to any crit­i­cal opin­ions of the incum­bent and mar­gin­al­is­ing the oppo­nents of the present regime. This actu­al­ly made all polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion mean­ing­less.

The inde­pen­dent media pri­mar­i­ly focussed on the pres­i­den­tial con­tenders and their agen­das. As com­pared to the oth­er can­di­dates oppos­ing Mr Lukašen­ka, the biggest amount of space was giv­en to Ms Karatkievič, a new­com­er in the field of Belaru­sian pub­lic pol­i­tics. There was a clash in the oppo­si­tion on whether to endorse her or not, which became a fac­tor that brought her into the spot­light.

When the elec­tion was over, the state-owned and inde­pen­dent media dif­fered dra­mat­i­cal­ly in their assess­ment of the vot­ing pro­ce­dure, the vote count, the out­come of the elec­tion and the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign as a whole.

3. Major Find­ings

3.1 The State-owned Media

The state-owned elec­tron­ic media increased elec­tion cov­er­age time, as com­pared to the 2010 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Depend­ing on the stage of the mon­i­tor­ing, it was com­pat­i­ble with the air time for weath­er and sport or exceed­ed it. For exam­ple, the aggre­gat­ed data for the time span between 1 Sep­tem­ber and 10 Octo­ber, 2015 show that Panara­ma news pro­gramme on Belarus 1 TV sta­tion allo­cat­ed 19% of its time to elec­tion-relat­ed issues, 2.5% to weath­er fore­cast and 14.5% to sport.[5] Anoth­er pop­u­lar news pro­gramme, Nashi Novosti on ONT, gave 8.2% of its air time to the elec­tion, 5% to weath­er and 12.3% to sport. The state-owned print­ed media also paid more atten­tion to elec­tion-relat­ed sub­jects.

At the same time, there was not any notice­able change in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of air time and space between the actors of the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. In this respect the state-owned media kept to their rou­tine prac­tices of elec­tion cov­er­age.

Pres­i­dent Lukašen­ka still went on dom­i­nat­ing the media field. Accord­ing to the aggre­gat­ed data, Panara­ma on Belarus 1 allo­cat­ed him 61% of the total time giv­en to all the mon­i­tored actors.[6] The incum­bent received 57% of elec­tion-relat­ed time in Nashi Novosti on ONT. Radyjo­fakt on the 1^st Chan­nel of the Nation­al Radio gave him 35% of its elec­tion cov­er­age time. The incum­bent did not only fea­ture most promi­nent­ly in the state-owned media but was also pre­sent­ed in a pos­i­tive or high­ly pos­i­tive light.

The oth­er pres­i­den­tial run­ners stood no chance of catch­ing up with the incum­bent in terms of air time and space they received. For exam­ple, Nashi Novosti on ONT gave 5.2% of its elec­tion cov­er­age time to Ms Karatkievič, 5.4% to Mr Hardukievič and 5.1% to Mr Ula­chovič. We have not traced any essen­tial dif­fer­ences in the per­cent­age of air time and space allo­cat­ed to the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls in the oth­er mon­i­tored state-owned media. By con­trast to the 2010 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, they did not give the can­di­dates who opposed the incum­bent neg­a­tive assess­ment but for the most part spoke of them in a neu­tral or pos­i­tive tone.

Of the oth­er mon­i­tored actors, the media focussed most on the Cen­tral Elec­tion Com­mis­sion (CEC) and sub­sidiary com­mis­sions, the elec­torate and the west­ern observers. In some state-owned media the CEC and sub­sidiary com­mis­sions received as much atten­tion as the con­tenders, and a few media gave the com­mis­sions even more cov­er­age than Mr Lukašenka’s oppo­nents. For exam­ple, Nashi Novosti on ONT gave the elec­tion com­mis­sions 4.3% of its elec­tion-cov­er­age time, while each of the con­tenders received a bit more than 5%. Radyjo­fakt on the 1^st Chan­nel of the Nation­al Radio allo­cat­ed near­ly 26% of the elec­tion cov­er­age time to the elec­tion com­mis­sions and only 1.2% to Ms Karatkievič, Mr Haj­dukievič and Mr Ula­chovič tak­en togeth­er.

Some state-owned media, e.g. the Mogilevskaya Prav­da paper, gave as much (or slight­ly more) atten­tion to the con­tenders as to such pro-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions as the Belaru­sian Nation­al Youth Union (BNYU), Belaya Rus and Belarus’ Fed­er­a­tion of Trade Unions (BFTU). These organ­i­sa­tions open­ly cam­paigned for Mr Lukašen­ka.

Some of the mon­i­tored media may have fea­tured the elec­torate quite sig­nif­i­cant­ly, but the vot­ers quot­ed by the state-owned media expressed their opin­ions in a neu­tral man­ner or sim­ply called upon oth­er vot­ers to go to the polls and ‘make their choice for the good of Belarus’. They did not air any crit­i­cism of the can­di­dates.

The state-owned media basi­cal­ly ignored the oppo­nents of the present regime. The oppo­si­tion received about 0.5% of the total elec­tion cov­er­age time or was giv­en no voice at all. The excep­tions were the Belarus Segod­nya and the Mogilevskaya Prav­da, which crit­i­cised the oppo­si­tion in 2% and 2.4% of their elec­tion cov­er­age space, respec­tive­ly.

3.2 Direct Access

In accor­dance with the estab­lished pro­ce­dure, the can­di­dates who obtained reg­is­tra­tion were grant­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address the vot­ers twice on Belarus 1 TV sta­tion and the 1^st Chan­nel of the Nation­al Radio, as well as pub­lish their pro­grammes in the state-owned papers des­ig­nat­ed by the CEC. The pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls’ address­es were admit­ted­ly tele­vised dur­ing prime time, start­ing at 7.30 p.m., which is evi­dence of improve­ment in terms of their chances to draw big­ger audi­ences. (Dur­ing the 2010 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, the can­di­dates’ address­es were tele­vised from 7.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.) As for the radio address­es, it is high­ly unlike­ly that a lot of vot­ers were able to hear them between 6.10 a.m. and 7.10 a.m. (Dur­ing the 2010 cam­paign the can­di­dates’ radio address­es were sched­uled for the same time.)

Symp­to­mati­cal­ly, but the state-run print­ed and elec­tron­ic media did not adver­tise the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls’ address­es to the elec­torate. TV guides pre­sent­ed them sim­ply as Speech­es of Can­di­dates for Pres­i­den­cy of the Repub­lic of Belarus, with­out giv­ing their names.[7] Nei­ther did the TV guides give the names of the can­di­dates who took part in the tele­vised debate on 3 Octo­ber. Mean­while, the same TV guide men­tioned the names of the char­ac­ters of a Russ­ian crime series Ulit­sy razbitykh fonarey (The Streets of Smashed Lamps): ‘Two peo­ple who lived in the same block of flats, busi­ness­man Semy­onov and PT teacher Kopeykin, are killed.’

The Belarus Segod­nia dai­ly pub­lished the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls’ agen­das. Mr Ulachovič’s agen­da was the first to be pub­lished, with 717 cm² allo­cat­ed to it (Belarus Segod­nia, 17/09/2015). Mean­while, the incumbent’s agen­da took up 919 cm² (Belarus Segod­nia, 18/09/2015).

One of the pres­i­den­tial run­ners, name­ly the incum­bent, refused to address the vot­ers or to par­tic­i­pate in the debates. Dur­ing his vis­it to Belaru­sian Met­al Works in Žlobin Mr Lukašen­ka said by way of explain­ing his deci­sion, ‘Well, there’s noth­ing new about it, you know. I appear on TV near­ly every day. It’s not a prob­lem… I believe I must some­how respond to process­es that are under way in real life. Why should I sit on the TV screen [sic! – translator’s note] and tell you what our edu­ca­tion and health care will be like?  He who fol­lows me [sic! – translator’s note] and my poli­cies, he knows my atti­tude very well.’ (Glavny Efir on Belarus 1, 27/09/2015.)

3.3 Cam­paign­ing for One Can­di­date

On 2 August, 2015, a short time before the mon­i­tor­ing began, Belarus 1 launched a series of ‘doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cles of how Belarus has changed for the two decades of its sov­er­eign­ty,’ broad­cast as part of Glavny Efir Sun­day pro­gramme ( http://www.tvr.by/events/proekty-atn/-belarus-xxi/). The series under the title Belarus: the 21^st cen­tu­ry con­sist­ed of ten films and was not intend­ed to mark any impor­tant event in Belarus’ recent his­to­ry but pre­sent­ed the twen­ty years of Pres­i­dent Lukašenka’s term in office in a pos­i­tive and high­ly pos­i­tive light as a suc­cess sto­ry, marked by great achieve­ments and vic­to­ries. When the series end­ed, Belarus 1 pre­sent­ed a trail­er for its ‘new project, a doc­u­men­tary TV series on Belarus’ recent his­to­ry called My – Belorusy’ [We Are Belaru­sians, after the first line of the offi­cial nation­al anthem – translator’s note] (http://www.tvr.by/events/proekty-atn/my-belorusy/). It looks at the his­to­ry of inde­pen­dent Belarus and its leader’s work from the same angle. The first part called The Ener­gy of Suc­cess cen­tres on ‘econ­o­my, which col­lapsed in the ear­ly 1990s; then food ration coupons were aban­doned and a new pro­gramme to deal with the reces­sion was adopt­ed. It also shows how Belarus became a space pow­er, what peo­ple abroad say about us and why famous vis­i­tors com­pare Belarus to Switzer­land. Togeth­er we remem­ber what we start­ed from and what we have been able to cre­ate. Togeth­er.’ (http://www.tvr.by/video/my-belorusy/film-pervyy-energiya-uspekha/).

Dur­ing actu­al­ly the whole cam­paign­ing peri­od the news pro­gram Panara­ma on Belarus 1 has been show­ing spe­cial items under the head­ing We Did It Togeth­er. They pre­sent­ed footage of cul­tur­al, social, med­ical, admin­is­tra­tive and sports facil­i­ties mush­room­ing all over Belarus. These items either direct­ly or by their gen­er­al con­text ref­ered to Mr Lukašenka’s twen­ty years’ term in office.

The Naša Niva (23/09/2015) count­ed how often the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates used cer­tain key words in their pro­grammes. ‘Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašenka’s most fre­quent words are “we/us”,’ says the week­ly. ‘They are used 53 times. Then comes “Belarus” (27 times).’ It has to be point­ed out that anoth­er key word is “TOGETHER”, which is writ­ten in cap­i­tals: ‘TOGETHER we have estab­lished inde­pen­dent Belarus! TOGETHER we will over­come all hard­ships! TOGETHER we will build a hap­py and thriv­ing coun­try!’ 

Anoth­er tell­tale sign is that a nation­wide cam­paign called We Are Togeth­er had been under way for the last few months. It offered peo­ple liv­ing in dif­fer­ent towns and cities an oppor­tu­ni­ty to ‘sing togeth­er with famous celebri­ties for the whole coun­try to hear’ (http://ont.by/news/our_news/mogilyov-prinimaet-estafety-obschenacionalnoj-akcii-mi-vmeste). The con­certs had been broad­cast on the ONT nation­al TV sta­tion ‘with V‑sign in the colours of the state flag as its logo’.  Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Tać­ciana Karatkievič has point­ed out that ‘Can­di­date Lukašenka’s cam­paign uses an iden­ti­cal sym­bol.’ (http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=157007).

In the con­clud­ing peri­od of the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign Radyjo­fakt (23/09/2015, the 1^st Nation­al Radio Chan­nel) launched a series of inter­views with Belaru­sian researchers pre­sent­ed under the head­ing We Choose Belarus. Polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Ali­ak­siej Dzier­mant spoke on the issues of strength­en­ing Belarus’ sov­er­eign­ty. The key mes­sage was that the gov­ern­ment deserved all cred­it for strength­en­ing state sov­er­eign­ty and main­tain­ing order.

Mr Lukašen­ka as the incum­bent obvi­ous­ly per­son­i­fied the gov­ern­ment. The inter­view had much in com­mon with Belarus: the 21^st Cen­tu­ry, which employs the same mod­el of pre­sent­ing the incum­bent in a high­ly pos­i­tive light in the con­text of the last two decades of Belaru­sian sov­er­eign­ty. In a sim­i­lar item in Radyjo­fakt (30/09/2015, the 1^st Nation­al Radio Chan­nel) a reporter vir­tu­al­ly quot­ed ver­ba­tim whole para­graphs from the incumbent’s pro­gramme in Belaru­sian trans­la­tion.

Reporter: ‘The idea of giv­ing every per­son an oppor­tu­ni­ty to earn a decent liv­ing from their work has always formed the basis of the Belaru­sian eco­nom­ic mod­el. For this rea­son, dur­ing the times of world eco­nom­ic crises, which Belarus has expe­ri­enced more than once since the ear­ly 1990s, it has been the top pri­or­i­ty in state poli­cies to keep enter­pris­es run­ning and main­tain jobs for peo­ple. This approach has not changed now that the world econ­o­my is again going through hard times.’

Can­di­date Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašenka’s pro­gramme: ‘The idea of giv­ing every per­son an oppor­tu­ni­ty to earn a decent liv­ing from their work has laid the foun­da­tions of the Belaru­sian eco­nom­ic mod­el from the very begin­ning. It has always been the top pri­or­i­ty in our poli­cies to keep enter­pris­es run­ning and main­tain jobs for peo­ple, despite any cri­sis.’

Reporter: ‘So the coun­try lead­er­ship is already mak­ing plans for the future. Three strate­gic goals have been set in the eco­nom­ic field: zero unem­ploy­ment, export and invest­ments. Zero unem­ploy­ment means social sta­bil­i­ty, when every­one can earn their liv­ing. Export means a sta­ble econ­o­my, with strong nation­al cur­ren­cy and low infla­tion, and invest­ments mean devel­op­ment.’

Can­di­date Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašenka’s pro­gramme: ‘Zero unem­ploy­ment means social sta­bil­i­ty and well­be­ing, when every­one can earn their liv­ing from their work. Export means a sta­ble econ­o­my, strong nation­al cur­ren­cy, low infla­tion and a bal­anced bud­get. Invest­ments mean the country’s devel­op­ment, new tech­nolo­gies and a new stan­dard of qual­i­ty of life for each Belaru­sian cit­i­zen.’

Reporter: ‘It is expect­ed that all these mea­sures, i.e. effec­tive state gov­ern­ment com­bined with pri­vate ini­tia­tive and the Belaru­sian people’s ded­i­cat­ed work will ensure a new eco­nom­ic break­through for our coun­try in the near­est future.’

Can­di­date Ali­ak­san­dr Lukašenka’s pro­gramme: ‘The com­bi­na­tion of all the above­men­tioned mea­sures will ensure a new eco­nom­ic break­through for our coun­try, as effec­tive state gov­ern­ment com­bines with pri­vate ini­tia­tive and our people’s ded­i­cat­ed work.’

Last but not least, one of the news items on Nashi Novosti (29/09/2015, ONT) fea­tured a 16-year-old Belaru­sian athlete’s record in a pow­er-lift­ing com­pe­ti­tion. Reporter: ‘The cap­i­tal city of Spain will remem­ber Ali­ak­san­dra not only for her achieve­ments in sport. The girl appeared in Madrid wear­ing a high­ly dis­tinc­tive T‑shirt.’ Then there was footage of the ath­lete in the gym, in which she undid her jack­et to reveal a T‑shirt with a por­trait of Mr Lukašen­ka and a cap­tion, ‘Alexan­der Lukashenko. The Pow­er­ful Pres­i­dent of the Pow­er­ful Coun­try.’ ‘It was my idea,’ said the ath­lete, ‘because I respect Alexan­der Grig­o­rye­vich. He is a pow­er­ful man. I respect his poli­cies.’ We did not trace any instances of cam­paign­ing for any oth­er pres­i­den­tial run­ner in the news pro­gramme.

These instances meet the def­i­n­i­tion of media effects,[8] or in oth­er terms, cam­paign­ing covert­ly or overt­ly for one of the can­di­dates.

When the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign was over, these media prod­ucts, pre­pared spe­cial­ly for the elec­tion, dis­ap­peared from the infor­ma­tion field, and the time giv­en to the incum­bent in the news dra­mat­i­cal­ly went down. For exam­ple, the total air time he received in Nashi Novosti on ONT on 14 and 15 Octo­ber, after the vot­ing day, was six times less than in the run-up to the elec­tion, on 7 and 8 Octo­ber. Radyjo­fakt on the 1^st Chan­nel of the Nation­al Radio cut the amount of cov­er­age giv­en to Mr Lukašen­ka near­ly by five times. Panara­ma on Belarus 1 showed the same trend, get­ting back to its rou­tine 40-minute for­mat, where­as the last month before the vot­ing day it had nor­mal­ly been on air for more than an hour.

3.4 The Inde­pen­dent Media

The aggre­gat­ed data for the elec­tion cov­er­age in the media show that www.naviny.by pri­mar­i­ly focussed on the pres­i­den­tial hope­fuls and their agen­das. Its assess­ment of all the can­di­dates was per­fect­ly bal­anced, with neu­tral cov­er­age play­ing a dom­i­nant role, but pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive opin­ions were also pre­sent­ed. Ms Karatkievič received more space than the oth­ers – about 13%. About 10% went to Mr Ula­chovič, 5.5% to Mr Haj­dukievič and 5.4% to Mr Lukašen­ka. Then came the oppo­si­tion, with 7.4% of elec­tion cov­er­age space, and polling sta­tion com­mis­sions, who received 6% of space.

The Nar­o­d­na­ja Vola spoke crit­i­cal­ly of all the can­di­dates, pre­sent­ing them in a neg­a­tive light. The paper paid most of its atten­tion to the oppo­si­tion, giv­ing it about 22% of its elec­tion cov­er­age space and assess­ing it neu­tral­ly, pos­i­tive­ly and neg­a­tive­ly.

The Naša Niva week­ly brought into the spot­light Mr Lukašen­ka (near­ly 42%) and Ms Karatkievič (17%), giv­ing them most­ly neu­tral cov­er­age, but also por­tray­ing them in a neg­a­tive light.

The Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da v Belorus­sii was excep­tion­al­ly impar­tial to all the pres­i­den­tial run­ners, dis­trib­ut­ing the space between them almost equal­ly.

These media did not sup­port any par­tic­u­lar can­di­date.

3.5 Assess­ment of the Elec­tion Process

Both reporters of the state-owned media and their inter­vie­wees spoke of the elec­tion in a high­ly pos­i­tive man­ner.

BelTA: ‘Opin­ion: The Belaru­sians vot­ed at the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion for sta­bil­i­ty and peace­ful life: Viačaslaŭ Šaršunoŭ: “Today nobody can accuse the gov­ern­ment of not hold­ing an open elec­tion or pre­sent­ing no alter­na­tives. Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates have nev­er before enjoyed so much free­dom to cam­paign among the work­force of enter­pris­es and in the media in Belarus’ recent his­to­ry.’ http://www.belta.by/society/view/belorusy-na-prezidentskih-vyborah-progolosovali-za-stabilnost-i-spokojstvie-mnenie-166439–2015/

Polit­i­cal ana­lyst Ali­ak­san­dr Špakoŭs­ki said that the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign was excep­tion­al­ly peace­ful because ‘It is the sec­ond time in Belarus’ his­to­ry a sov­er­eign state (the first was in 1994) that no hooli­gans call­ing for mass dis­tur­bances in the wake of the elec­tion have been reg­is­tered as pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates.’ Panara­ma (Belarus 1, 12/10/2015).

The state-owned media drew atten­tion to the gen­er­al mood on the vot­ing day and the vot­er turnout: ‘Lebe­dev: The atmos­phere at the polling sta­tions in Belarus was calm and fes­tive.’http://www.belta.by/politics/view/atmosfera-na-izbiratelnyh-uchastkah-v-belarusi-byla-spokojnoj-i-prazdnichnoj-lebedev-166316–2015/

Ali­ak­san­dr Ivanoŭs­ki, the First Deputy Prin­ci­pal of the Acad­e­my of Man­age­ment under the Pres­i­dent of Belarus said, ‘The turnout was tru­ly pow­er­ful and unprece­dent­ed. Some cit­i­zens out­side Belarus and those who have nev­er been here at all did not even believe that such things could hap­pen. They said that in Europe nobody went to the polls like that.’ Panara­ma (Belarus 1, 16/10/2015).

The con­tenders admit­ted that there had been not mean­ing­ful polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and the out­come of the elec­tion was known in advance. ‘We under­stand very well that one of the patri­ots is our deeply respect­ed Pres­i­dent Alexan­der Grig­o­rye­vich, who is today the main fig­ure on this stage,’ said Mr Ula­chovič. ‘He has once again proved that he is not only capa­ble of gov­ern­ing the coun­try but also indis­pens­able to our Belaru­sian land.’ http://www.belta.by/politics/view/ulahovich-schitaet-zasluzhennoj-pobedu-lukashenko-na-vyborah-166417–2015/

‘In real­i­ty we must realise,’ said Mr Haj­dukievič, ‘that peo­ple in Belarus did not want to change any­thing in the country’s polit­i­cal lead­er­ship at this dif­fi­cult time.’ Panara­ma (Belarus 1, 12/10/2015).

Ms Karatkievič was not giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to air her opin­ion. Instead, a Panara­ma reporter said, ‘Frus­tra­tion reigned last night and all day today among Tać­ciana Karatkievič’s team. They lost to the anony­mous “Against All Can­di­dates”. It means that her tem failed to get through to vot­ers.’ (Ibid.)

The edi­tor of the Belarus Segod­nya also admit­ted in his col­umn on behalf of the elec­torate that there had been no mean­ing­ful polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion: ‘What deci­sion can a nor­mal grown-up man take, if he has worked in a fac­to­ry for twen­ty years, has a fam­i­ly and under­stands what things real­ly mean? Can he vote for Haj­dukievič? Ula­chovič? Karatkievič? Can he entrust his future to them? No, he has read their bios and pro­grammes and under­stands that vot­ing for these nice peo­ple would be unfor­giv­ably child­ish behav­iour on his part.’ Belarus Segod­nya (13/10/2015).

The state-owned media pre­sent­ed the vot­ing pro­ce­dure in a pos­i­tive light, too. Accord­ing to a CIS observ­er Leonid Slut­sky, who was in charge of the del­e­ga­tion of the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of Belarus and Rus­sia, ‘true, there were liars among observers at some polling sta­tions, who said that the data for ear­ly vot­ing did not add up and in fact a lot few­er vot­ers had gone to the polls than the reg­is­ters showed.

The reg­is­ters were checked at once and oth­er observers dis­proved these insin­u­a­tions, so all attempts to put a fly in the oint­ment in the assess­ment of the elec­tion failed.’ (Radyjo­fakt on the 1^st Chan­nel of the Nation­al Radio, 03/10/2015).

How­ev­er, the observers spot­ted some short­com­ings. ‘The Alliance of Observ­er Mis­sions reports a well-organ­ised elec­tion in Belarus. Rober­ta Bonazzi spoke of some short­com­ings noticed by the Alliance observers. These are minor prob­lems that refer to the design of bal­lot box­es and bal­lot for­mat. Accord­ing to the expert, if they are elim­i­nat­ed, it will enhance elec­tion trans­paren­cy.’ (http://www.belta.by/politics/view/aljjans-missij-nabljudatelej-otmechaet-horoshuju-organizatsiju-vyborov-v-belarusi-166340–2015/) ‘The OSCE mis­sion assessed the vot­ing pro­ce­dure pos­i­tive­ly in 95% of instances. ‘Some pro­ce­dur­al prob­lems have been record­ed,’ the pre­lim­i­nary con­clu­sions say. ‘The over­all trans­paren­cy of the elec­tion process was assessed neg­a­tive­ly in 3% of reports. The Mis­sion also points out that a lot of observers were denied an oppor­tu­ni­ty to check vot­er reg­is­ters. Where they were grant­ed this oppor­tu­ni­ty, the observers of the Mis­sion “dis­cov­ered alleged­ly iden­ti­cal sig­na­tures”. The pre­lim­i­nary con­clu­sions also speak of some indi­ca­tors of bal­lot box stuff­ing. How­ev­er, the observers said that there were only indi­ca­tors rather than facts of stuff­ing.’ (http://www.belta.by/politics/view/protsess-golosovanija-polozhitelno-otsenen-missiej-obse-v-95-sluchaev-166400–2015/)

How­ev­er, the inde­pen­dent media report­ed that the OSCE gave a dif­fer­ent assess­ment to the elec­tion. ‘OSCE Observers: Vote count was flawed. Deputy Chair­man of the OSCE Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly Kent Härst­edt: The release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and a wel­com­ing atti­tude to the observers were pos­i­tive moments. How­ev­er, the hopes they inspired did not come true. Con­sid­er­ing the promis­es we had received, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed by the flaws dur­ing the vote count and tab­u­la­tion.’

‘The voice count was assessed neg­a­tive­ly at 30% of polling sta­tions where observers were pesent,’ says the OSCE/ODIHR report. ‘This tes­ti­fies to seri­ous prob­lems. The vote sum­ming was assessed neg­a­tive­ly as a process lack­ing trans­paren­cy at 25% of polling sta­tions were observers were present.’ (Nar­o­d­na­ja Vola, 13/10/2015.)

‘Human rights activists: The Belaru­sian elec­tion grave­ly vio­lat­ed inter­na­tion­al stan­dards. “How­ev­er, the elec­tion process grave­ly vio­lat­ed a num­ber of basic inter­na­tion­al stan­dards for free and demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions,’ said Alieh Hulak. ‘In our opin­ion, it did not com­plete­ly com­ply with the Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion, either, in what refers to mass ear­ly vot­ing. It is non-trans­par­ent vote count that caus­es most crit­i­cism.’ http://naviny.by/rubrics/elections/2015/10/12/ic_news_623_464886/

www.naviny.by made Ms Karatkievič’s voice heard: ‘Tać­ciana Karatkievič: I can­not recog­nise Lukašenka’s land­slide vic­to­ry. Ms Karatkievič point­ed out that the offi­cial fig­ures and the observers’ data did not add up. For this rea­son, it is impos­si­ble to estab­lish clear­ly, how many voic­es each can­di­date received, accord­ing to Ms Karatkievič.
The politi­cian stat­ed that at least 20% of the country’s adult cit­i­zens had vot­ed for peace­ful changes in Belarus, which was her cam­paign slo­gan.
‘I do not recog­nise the out­come,’ stressed the ex-run­ner, ‘so I can­not recog­nise Lukašenka’s land­slide vic­to­ry.’ http://naviny.by/rubrics/elections/2015/10/12/ic_news_623_464894/

‘OSCE/ODIHR: Belarus has a long way to go to demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions. ‘It is evi­dent that Belarus has a long way to go in order to ful­fil its demo­c­ra­t­ic oblig­a­tions,’ said Spe­cial Co-ordi­na­tor of the OSCE PA Short-Term Observ­er Mis­sion Kent Härst­edt. ‘The release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and a wel­com­ing atti­tude to the observers were pos­i­tive moments. How­ev­er, the hopes they inspired did not come true. Con­sid­er­ing the promis­es we had received, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed by the flaws dur­ing the vote count and tab­u­la­tion. We hope that the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment demon­strates polit­i­cal will to engage in a com­pre­hen­sive reform process, which we are ready to sup­port.’  http://naviny.by/rubrics/elections/2015/10/12/ic_news_623_464899/

4. Con­clu­sions

As com­pared to the pre­vi­ous elec­tions, this pres­i­den­tial cam­paign was excep­tion­al­ly ‘qui­et’ due to the lack of mean­ing­ful polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion or pub­lic dis­cus­sion of grave eco­nom­ic prob­lems. Anoth­er fac­tor in this low-key elec­tion was mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion of the oppo­nents of the regime and cen­sor­ship of any crit­i­cism of the incum­bent in the state-owned media. Fur­ther­more, they pre­sent­ed the twen­ty years of Belaru­sian sov­er­eign­ty and the today’s sit­u­a­tion as a suc­cess sto­ry, marked by great achieve­ments and vic­to­ries. These projects were specif­i­cal­ly timed to coin­cide with the elec­tion.

The state-owned media brought to the fore tech­ni­cal aspects of the elec­tion process, such as prepa­ra­tion of vot­ing places, the work of local author­i­ties, sub­sidiary elec­tion com­mis­sions, etc. This was one more char­ac­ter­is­tic fea­ture of elec­tion cov­er­age, which aimed to under­mine the polit­i­cal impor­tance of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and keep vot­ers from get­ting engaged in polit­i­cal com­pe­ti­tion between dif­fer­ent polit­i­cal forces and plat­forms.

Con­trary to their state-owned coun­ter­parts, the inde­pen­dent media were com­mit­ted to giv­ing cov­er­age to both the pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and oppo­nents of the regime. How­ev­er, they did not have any chance to make a dif­fer­ence dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, because of their lim­it­ed read­er­ship and the atmos­phere of pre­de­ter­mined out­come that per­me­at­ed the soci­ety.

The state-owned and inde­pen­dent media prac­tised very dif­fer­ent modes of elec­tion cov­er­age, which was par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in their assess­ment of the elec­tion after the vot­ing day.

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