Aleś Łahviniec, a lecturer of political science at the European Humanities University and the EOTP as well as an active politician, has announced his intentions to run for a seat in his local Sukharava district of Minsk. He has shared his thoughts and ambitions with Radio Liberty as to why yet he wants again to participate in Belarusian elections.

“I understand all the risks associated with being a candidate and running a campaign in a situation where there is no real vote count. But I am still running for this ‘election’ so that voters can have a high-quality alternative on the ballot paper. It doesn’t matter if my voters are not able to defend their vote at a polling station or in streets. The most important is that they have the chance to make a choice; that is a chance to think, evaluate, compare and select.

I am participating in this campaign fully understanding the fact that my candidacy is being ‘used’ by the regime to legitimize this election – look, even ‘the opposition’ is participating. Yet I also understand advantages of participation in the election process today.

There is an expression in Belarusian – to step on a garden rake – similar in English to shoot yourself in the foot – which means to repeatedly carry out an act which leads to a well known, usually negative consequence. For me, elections in Belarus are the same as a rake. Some will avoid the rake as they know that stepping on it will mean that they would get hit by it. At the same time, a practical person knows that this is one of the different tools necessary to keep his household in order. I consider that such 'rake-elections' are necessary although ultimately insufficient political tool to be used to eliminate an authoritarian garbage in our common home – Belarus.

Here are some of the reasons for participating in the election today:

1) to keep ‘a finger on the pulse’ of social moods, study and analyze the situation (through questionnaires and face-to-face conversations) and to earn voters’ confidence working from a campaign to a campaign. Of course it is a challenge to become highly visible and establish myself as the only alternative during one campaign. That is why regular high-quality campaigns in one district (and not in a new one each time!) lay a cornerstone and reinforce positions for further activities and creation of other than (legally allowed) election campaigns channels of communication with voters.

 2) to expand our support group to those who are completely apolitical or undecided. Those ‘against all’ and who don’t vote at all, taken together, are the real ‘majority’ of the Belarusian electors. In my district, it is important to create political (not depoliticized) means of communication and anti-ideological means of information. For instance, for six hours on Sunday 14 April during a signatures’ collection for my registration as a candidate in of the most frequently visited place of my district we were able to display a picture of Aliaksandr Milinkevich (Movement for Freedom leader), who is a member of my initiative group. Now when there are in average five candidates per district in Minsk nobody would have noticed our absence. But we are around! Moreover, we want the majority of society to understand and support us!

3) to act asymmetrically that is through active campaigning to articulate the most essential problems and, thus, attract attention of public, mass-media (state-owned and independent) and the authorities to a situation in my district. At the end, the authorities will have to notice problems of a particular constituency. They will not obviously acknowledge ‘the first source’ but the most important in this case is a result. For example, it was the case with the Sukharava polyclinic, which opened in 2009 partly thanks to our efforts. By the way, during this campaign I have received an indirect recognition of my activities: a pro-government candidate, who had previously been ‘appointed’ to be the Sukharava councillor, ‘switched’ to another district.

4) to provide voters with evidences that real elections in Belarus are non-existent. That is why trust in a candidate is only a part, though very essential, of their support. It is vital to ‘fight’ for general conditions and electoral standards or, in the least, to understand the real conditions of our elections. While collecting signatures for my candidacy we simultaneously showed pictures from polling stations and explained that independent observers did not have any possibility to really observe what kind of ‘miracles’ happening with ballot boxes.

5) to increase the circle of active supporters and ‘train’ my team members transferring onto them so valuable knowledge of a political campaigning. I am convinced that a politician who participates in elections (local, parliamentary, presidential) should not shun away from a real work and, thus, should give a positive example to his or her team by collecting signatures, going door-to-door, and staging pickets.

What I do is a form of civic activism. My conscience does not let me do otherwise. And this is a real definition of ‘politics’ – not a mere struggle for power but articulation and realization of propositions which are relevant to people’s everyday life.

And the election campaigning is an important instrument of it."

Source - Radio Liberty