Belarus-2011: Transformation Strategies

A workshop “Belarus-2011: transformation strategies” was held in Riga from 1-rst to 4-th of February. It was organized by German and Latvian partners of “Third Way Belarus” community with the support of Robert Bosch Foundation. Its participants were Belarusian students, German and Russian experts, and representatives of Latvian and German youth organizations.

Most of the workshops held together with Belarusian NGOs are, for the most part, devoted to scenarios of the present-day regime liberalization or its replacement. The dictatorship will end if NGOs create independent trade unions; the dictatorship will end if there are 100 talented journalists and one independent TV-channel in Belarus; the dictatorship will end if we take all Belarusian students abroad. But few ask themselves the main question: “What will we do after it will happen?” Or “What is our own perfect Belarus about?” Free? Yes. Democratic? Of course. But shall we make it a presidential or a parliamentary republic? And what electoral system shall we choose: majority or proportional representation? And what if we have a desire to sell a piece of our homeland? What type of privatization should we choose then?

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Belarusian opposition would be popular if it worked out a clear program of actions for periods both before and after the changes

Belarusian opposition would be much more popular if it worked out a clear program of actions for periods both before and after the change of the regime. We devoted four days in Riga to this “after period”.

Workshop’s agenda covered four major topics: political transformation, role of civil society in the process of transformation, economic transformation (privatization, matters of property, tax system, stability and adequacy of legal system), and NGOs’ activities in dictatorship environment.

Workshop consisted of experts’ lectures on the topic of Central and East European countries’ transformation experience, and discussions about the situation in Belarus and adaptability of different transformation patterns after Lukashenka’s regime liberalization or resignation. The experts were: Jacob Lemp (professor of Dresden University of technology), Sven Morlok (Parliament of Saxony deputy, expert of privatization agency), and Kirill Koktysh (associate professor of Moscow institution of international relations, political scientist).

The most debatable topics were future Belarusian political system, privatization and economy transformation, and ways of NGOs’ communication with their target groups.

We were rather unanimous in choosing the optimal political system for Belarus. To our minds, it should be democratic liberal parliamentary republic with majority representation, and one chamber parliament. Economic issues were of strong debates: proposals varied from welfare state to a very rigid liberal model with considerable cut of social welfare.

Debates on how NGOs can involve new people in active social life were the most difficult part of the workshop. Participants had lots of good ideas but failed to work out a common strategy.

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Debates on how NGOs can involve new people in active social life were the most difficult part of the workshop.

This workshop revealed that there are both good concepts of Belarus’ transformation and smart people who can bring these ideas into life. Democratic values popularization and involvement of Belarusian into civil activities remain the main problems. Let’s hope that Riga workshop gave its participants enough food for thought.