Posted on 01/08/2006 6:40:03 AM PST by lizol
Belarus election unlikely to be fair
January 05, 2006
THE US ambassador to Belarus said Wednesday the upcoming presidential election in the central European state was "highly unlikely" to be free or fair, but gave no hint of possible new US sanctions.
Ambassador George Krol painted what he called a "dismal" picture of opposition prospects to challenge President Alexander Lukashenko in the March 19 poll in Belarus, condemned here as Europe's last dicatarship.
"What we've seen for quite some time are all the efforts by the authorities to prevent any alternative views from being able to get out to the people," Krol said.
"It looks highly unlikely that these elections are going to be free and fair," he told reporters at a State Department briefing ahead of Lukashenko's bid for a third term.
The United States has in recent years stepped up its pressure on Belarus, a landlocked state of 10 million people still heavily dependent on Russian economic subsidies.
The Belarus Democracy Act signed into law in October 2004 authorized assistance to the country's opposition while barring official loans and investment except for humanitarian purposes.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last year listed Belarus as one of six "outposts of tyranny" and held a high-profile meetingin neighboring Lithuania with a group of Belarussian dissidents vowing street protests. Despite the pressure from Washington and a plunge in US assistance from more than 100 million dollars in 1994 to about 12 million dollars last year, Lukashenko has stayed defiant.
But Krol, asked repeatedly what sort of pressure the West could exert on the Belarus strongman to accept democratic reforms, mentioned only the media's role to focus the "power of attention" on civil and human rights abuses.
He sidestepped the question of sanctions and spoke only in general terms about the impact on Belarus' ties to the outside world.
"The Belarussian government knows that it cannot, will not, be able to enjoy a robust cooperative relationship with the United States and the European Union as long as it maintains this kind of a system," Krol said. Seven candidates are hoping to run against Lukashenko in March and have begun collecting the 100,000 signatures needed to support their bids.
The single candidate for the opposition groups, which managed to paste over their divisions in October, is Alexander Milinkevich, a 58-year-old physicist and rights activist.
Krol took some comfort in the political activity. "I would see that that is a good process to start developing even thought the overall scenario is very difficult," he said.
I've got the solution...send in Dean Logan!
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