Belarus. The dark heart of Europe

Russia is the country that can do most about the dismal situation in Belarus

STANISLAV SHUSHKEVICH, the first post-Soviet leader of Belarus, tells a wry anecdote that encapsulates how his country of 10m people, which now sits right next to the European Union, has been neglected by the West. “I've always liked your country,” an American congressman once told him, “especially since you got rid of that Ceausescu fellow.”

Many westerners have complacently assumed that all the easily confused ex-communist countries of Europe are sure to move towards democracy. Not Belarus. Since 1994, the country has been led brutishly back towards totalitarianism and a command economy by its president, Alexander Lukashenka. In a rigged referendum on October 17th, Mr Lukashenka “won” the right to change the constitution and run for a third presidential term in 2006 (and for a fourth and fifth, if the president, who is only 50, still bothers with elections by 2016). He was officially supported by 77% of the electorate, a figure that independent pollsters judge implausible in the extreme. Belarus now looks doomed to petrify in its sad, regressive state, unless Russia can be persuaded to do something about it.

Before last week's referendum, there were widespread fears about how the votes would be counted. In the event, some reports found that Mr Lukashenka's team had filled in ballots before handing them out. State propaganda and restrictions on independent media and on opposition politicians were themselves enough to make the result illegitimate. International observers condemned the parliamentary elections held on the same day, in which no opposition candidate won a seat; absurd technicalities had been used to stop many of them standing. Mr Lukashenka has always governed like a latter-day tsar, with little regard for constitutional or legal niceties. The fear among Belarussian human-rights activists, who are subject to official harassment and even to prosecutions on ludicrous pretexts, is that he will now slide from nasty authoritarianism towards outright dictatorship.

Optimistic outsiders, who had hoped for a democratic revolution of the kind that occurred in Georgia last year, will probably wait in vain. Belarus is not Georgia; nor is it Ukraine, where a flawed but more genuine election will be held next week. Many still support Mr Lukashenka, who pays pensions and state salaries (which is to say, most) on time. But even those who would prefer to see the back of him are unlikely to take to the streets. Given their grim history of foreign domination, Belarussians tend to be both patient and apolitical.

What can the rest of the world do to galvanise them? To be fair, the European Union and the Americans have not been entirely inactive. International scrutiny may explain why dissidents, although still often beaten and arrested, are no longer “disappearing” in the way that three of them, plus a journalist, did in 1999-2000. Both the EU and America have imposed visa bans on officials implicated in the disappearances and the subsequent cover-up. They should now impose similar bans on those involved in gerrymandering elections and suppressing freedoms of speech and association. America's Congress has passed a Belarus Democracy Act, which pledges financial support for democratic activists. Such support has in the past helped to pay the punitive fines that are levied to keep Mr Lukashenka's critics quiet. But it is hard to see what else the West, on its own, can do. Economic sanctions, for instance, would only make poor Belarussians even poorer.

The Russian option

The best plan for America and the Europeans is to persuade Russia that Mr Lukashenka is not the sort of neighbour it should want. He once aspired to re-unite his country with Russia and to lead both; Russia's Vladimir Putin, not surprisingly, demurred. The Belarussian economy, dominated by large, state-owned industries and farms, may now be too Soviet for the further economic integration once envisaged. But however irritating Mr Putin may find him, Russia still props up Mr Lukashenka and his country with cheap energy.

Russian politicians have queued up to endorse Mr Lukashenka's referendum. Yet Mr Putin would do better to cultivate a more democratic Belarus. Mr Lukashenka's antics - his corrupt regime provides cover for illicit arms trafficking too - besmirch Russia's reputation. And even those Russians who cling to a cold-war, sphere-of-influence approach to their neighbours would lose little from encouraging a less repressive regime there. If Mr Putin and the West wait much longer, Mr Lukashenka, rather like Fidel Castro in Cuba, may become all-but impossible to budge.

Editorial looks at the dismal situation to be found in Belarus under President Alexander Lukashenka.