Belarusian centre-right opposition coalition will participate in parliamentary elections

The centre-right opposition coalition – the United Civic Party, For Freedom Movement and Belarusian Christian Democracy – is set to accumulate resources in order to participate in the parliamentary campaign, given that For Freedom Movement decides on political participation. Other opposition parties, such as Tell the Truth, the Belarusian Popular Front and the Fair World, are likely to participate in the parliamentary elections independently.

On November 10^th, 2015 at the Assembly of the European People’s Party in Brussels, UCP leader Anatol Lyabedzka, For Freedom Movement leader Yury Hubarevich and Organizing Committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy head Vital Rymashevskiy announced their readiness to form the centre-right coalition. On November 13^th, they held a press conference in order to explain their common goal, i.e. to participate in the next election campaign together so as they shared common values. In addition, the coalition addressed European politicians with a request to link changes in the electoral law directly with the lifting of sanctions against the Lukashenka regime.

While talking to journalists, Hubarevich and Rymashevsky said that European politicians had prompted them to unite. The declaration of the centre-right coalition implied the non-inclusion of other participants. Some analysts believe that the coalition has been created against the Tell the Truth and ex-presidential candidate Tatsiana Karatkevich. However, the coalition principles also exclude Mikola Statkevich (as leftist social democrat) and Fair World Leftist Party with its leader, Sergei Kaliakin. In addition, the coalition frameworks have appeared too narrow to the right-wing Belarusian Popular Front, which originally signed the centre-right coalition declaration.

Despite the fact that all external attempts to unite the opposition have failed in the past and only lead to distrust and conflicts between the opposition parties, the union between the FFM, BCD and UCP into a centre-right coalition is only reasonable. These political forces’ own resources are quite modest and they would be unlikely to participate in the parliamentary campaign individually and would have to continue to advocate for a boycott.

Overall, the opposition is likely to participate in the parliamentary campaign in its ‘natural’ state, i.e. with leftist, right and centrist agendas, which indicates a significant decrease in the influence by foreign partners on the opposition forces’ decisions.