If You Can Vote, Don't Take It for Granted

I'm currently in Minsk, Belarus with my fiancé (Anastasiya) who is a Belarusian citizen.

Yesterday were presidential elections in Belarus.

Belarus is a dictatorship and the current president (Lukashenko) has been in power since 1994 (26 years). He’s the first and only president of Belarus since the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

How is it a dictatorship and there are elections? Well, “elections” is maybe the wrong word. It’s more like an event that looks like an election except that people can’t actually elect anyone. There is only one possible outcome: Lukashenko gets “re-elected”. In other words, the elections are rigged. 

I can’t vote but Anastasiya did. 

Now, everyone knows that the elections are rigged. But if you’re a totalitarian regime, you play the game of pretending they aren’t because it’s kinda awkward if you say it out loud. So there are some fun little tricks you use. 

The most obvious one is that you don’t allow international observers to overlook the election process. It’s not that you don’t “allow” it, it’s just that you “forget” to invite that international body in time. Another one is to put the more promising other candidates into jail for “reasons” that are totally justified but “unrelated” to the elections.

The less obvious ones are more sneaky. When Anastasiya got her ballot today to cast her vote, it was already marked with a dot that was scribbled on there with a pen. What that means is that when they’re counting the ballots, hers would (conveniently) be counted as invalid. Anastasiya’s mom got a ballot that was prefilled with a date that wasn’t today, again invalidating it. Anastasiya’s friend was told before filling out the ballot that she can sign it with her name. That’s wrong information and would’ve invalidated her ballot. You get the point.

Finally, the internet is not working today (blocked) for certain apps and websites like Instagram, Whatsapp, Telegram etc. You know, the sorts of things people would need to organize a protest if they end up not being happy with the election results. And just in case people still manage to organize themselves, military equipment was brought into the city yesterday night.

Yesterday at 11pm, we were waiting in front of one of the voting buildings with 40 other people to hear the results (peacefully). A military bus started driving towards us and everyone gathered suddenly ran and scattered through the side streets. That’s because it’s not unusual here, especially during elections, for random people to be shoved into a van or bus (wrong place, wrong time) by the police or special forces to spend a night in jail, maybe get beat up a little. It’s a basic intimidation strategy to keep people tame. 

Lukashenko "won" yesterday's elections with 80%. According to independent (unofficial) polls, Lukashenko has anywhere between 3-30% approval. People went on the streets and 3,000 have been jailed so far. The protests continue.

I’m saying all of this because it's a reminder to me.

I grew up in a country where free and democratic elections exist and have existed for the past couple of decades. They’ve become part of the norm. So much so that I (and many other people in my country) started to take them for granted, even though my parents always tried to impart on me the idea that the ability to vote is a privilege and a responsibility that should be exercised. I’m only now starting to see the merit in that advice — I’m not sure if I went to the last elections in Germany and I certainly considered them a waste of my time. 

I guess there are certain lessons of history that get lost with a generation that has never experienced the other side of it. That’s why we need these reminders.

There are flaws with the democratic process and there are many dishonest things happening even in the most progressive democracies (many of those now institutionalized as “lobbying”). But being able to vote and that vote actually counting for something should be anything but taken for granted. Voting is more than just writing a name on a piece of paper, it’s a symbol for the hard-won freedom from the oppression and tyranny of previous times.