Political Scientist: Lukashenka Helps To Overthrow Himself

The purge, arranged by the Belarusian ruler, works for possible putschists.

Lukashenka has recently started talking about the change of generations, a law on guarantees of care was adopted. Has Lukashenka really started thinking about leaving power?

The Charter97.org talked about this with Belarusian political scientist Anatol Kotau:

– Well, yes and no, the summary of the answer is as follows. If we compare his current behaviour and statements with the way he behaved on other topics before, then we can say that yes. The topic of the change of generations, the topic of the presidential election began to sound in almost every public speech. Similarly, six months before Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine, the topic of war was in each of his statements. If we judge the frequency of mentioning the topic, let's say, never mind fitting it or not to the situation, then we can say that Aliaksandr Lukashenka is seriously considering it.

On the other hand, the people of Belarus have heard more than one hundred times Lukashenka’s promises to hand over the country to younger people, to "take his case and leave". Therefore, you should not hope for this in any way that everything will happen by itself and literally in a month, in two or this year. But such an option, preparation for it, came to the final stage, including documents. At least, if something prompts him to take such a step, then the infrastructure is ready, the regulatory framework is also ready.

In this way, the situation in 2024 is different from all that was before. Before that, there were no documents for the future, what would happen to Lukashenka, except for the option when he would be killed or die, which appeared after 2020, in the Belarusian legislation at all. This topic was not even discussed in government, this topic was taboo. Now the adoption of certain regulatory legal acts, which provide guarantees of security and some kind of assistance for him and his family, has spilled out into the public field.

– We see that no one can guarantee the safe transit of power as it was in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Does Lukashenka understand this?

– I think he understands this perfectly well. We can say that the creation of this entire system with the Supreme People's Assembly and a certain redistribution of powers began even before the tensions, before the acute phase of the crisis in Kazakhstan. In a sense, it followed the model of Kazakhstan. I’m sure that Lukashenka consulted with Nazarbayev more than once on how to reward these legal structures to provide some guarantees on paper. However, everything breaks down about the harsh reality of authoritarian regimes.

In the entire history of former Soviet republics and regimes there, they can hardly be called democratic (with a few exceptions), there was only one successful operation "successor and back" – Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. All others broke down after the arrival of the successor. Anyway, this creates a structure of dual power within its system – this is, relatively speaking, not the regime and the opposition, but dual power within the regime. Such elements are alien and harmful to autocracies, they disintegrate it rapidly because the security forces and the top officials begin to choose one of the centers of power within the system. And more often this real center of power becomes the successor.

– The Foreign Policy publication names a military putsch in Belarus among the possible scenarios for 2024. It will lead to the overthrow of Lukashenka and his escape, according to them. In your opinion, is such a scenario possible in our country?

– This scenario is quite real, only with one feature – a military putsch or a rebellious successor (from the security services for example), it will be an action not in favour of an independent or relatively independent Belarus, it will be a putsch in favour of Russia. A military coup can be sponsored by the pro-Russian lobby, which is gaining strength in Belarus, and also thanks to the campaign to cleanse the entire national culture led by Lukashenka.

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