BAJ Monitors Share Their View of the Electoral Campaign

When we are told that “the elections went along in a quiet atmosphere”…

Ales Antsipen­ka:

Elec­tions, how we mean it, have lost its val­ue in the state. All pre­vi­ous years the dra­mat­ic start was restrained arti­fi­cial­ly. We deal with a guid­ed process, and Mrs Yarmoshy­na is rem­i­nis­cent of a direc­tor of the action. The elec­tions come to be a kind of “pro­ce­dure”, there are more talks about the tech­ni­cal side of the event, and here CEC (the Cen­tral Elec­toral Com­mit­tee) has had its impact.

Mean­while, the sense of elec­tions are not dec­o­ra­tions, not the film edi­tor, but the actors who go out to the stage and play the dra­ma. Elec­tions are a com­pe­ti­tion, a con­flict of views, a vio­la­tion of some rules… When we are told that “the elec­tions went along in a qui­et atmos­phere” – what inter­est will jour­nal­ists have to such events?

All this is indica­tive of social fatigue, or, accord­ing to a Sovi­et ter­mi­nol­o­gy, — stag­na­tion. The rou­tine becomes sim­i­lar to lazi­ness: no one wants either lift a sin­gle fin­ger or say a word. Because, there is hope­less­ness – so to say, this will change noth­ing.

It does not mean that jour­nal­ists have to wait for real elec­tions. In times as such, there should be keen record of what’s going on under the guise of the elec­tions. The dom­i­nat­ing genre here, in my view, is ana­lyt­ics. Peo­ple should see what’s hap­pen­ing behind the façade of these undra­mat­ic, well-direct­ed elec­tions.

Andrei Bas­tunets:

I wouldn’t say there is lit­tle cov­er­age of the elec­tions, espe­cial­ly in the state-run press. It seems to me that the elec­tions are more con­spic­u­ous in the media rather than in the pub­lic life. And these are not jour­nal­ists to be brought to account, but rather those who have low­ered the elec­tions to such lev­el.

The pres­i­dent incum­bent is in the lead of the cam­paign of ignor­ing the elec­tions: he does not speak on TV (note – in the part sched­uled as time for elec­toral agi­ta­tion), he rejects par­tic­i­pa­tion in the debates, he is not men­tioned in the media as a can­di­date at all…

It is enough to go out to see that the city is bare! Two weeks head of the vot­ing day, and there is hard­ly any polit­i­cal adver­tis­ing.

I know well what would be hap­pen­ing in Ukraine or in Poland on these days. All around would be plas­tered with elec­toral mate­ri­als, can­di­dates would talk non-stop on TV… This attracts the public’s atten­tion to the events and helps peo­ple make their choice. Here, we have elec­tions as some pre­de­ter­mined rit­u­al, like in Sovi­et time when “it’s all clear”.

I liked how Ales Antsipen­ka com­pared the elec­tions with a foot­ball game. Imag­ine that the teams go to play, and the sports­cast­er is say­ing all the time that the ref­er­ee is well-dressed, that the game pro­ceeds in a friend­ly atmos­phere, that all rules are observed, that the filed is well-sized and the ball is round etc. One can say noth­ing about the teams then.

 How peo­ple react

Andrei Bas­tunets:

In my view, free per­for­mance on TV – so to say, the can­di­dates are enti­tled to half an hour of free talk on state TV – it is a kind of mock­ery. One has to be real­ly enthu­si­as­tic about watch­ing TV, so that to switch on this very pro­gram, which is sched­uled with­out men­tion­ing the name of the can­di­date to speak, and sit in front of the TV for half an hour lis­ten­ing to what the per­son says.

In the neigh­bor­ing coun­tries, it is arden­cy, bat­tle, it engages. Some­times, of course, it leads to unwant­ed results, when pop­ulists come to pow­er. But, still, it is a con­test of polit­i­cal forces, and not a for­mal drill.  

Ales Antsipen­ka

It struck me that this time I hear no ques­tions or what­ev­er reac­tion to this year’s elec­toral cam­paign, though I active­ly com­mu­ni­cate out of home and in the coun­try­side. Peo­ple don’t give a damn, rough­ly speak­ing.

The sec­ond thing is that these per­for­mances of the can­di­dates look like Hyde Park, a kind of reserve. So to say, here is your half an hour – say what you want because it is all in a lim­it­ed infor­ma­tion­al space. It was lim­it­ed by not call­ing the names of the can­di­dates . there is no pre­vi­ous announce­ment of the per­for­mances, there is no ten­sion. It makes the elec­tions dull for any­one – either for the elec­torate or for jour­nal­ists. Except for jour­nal­ists of state-run mass media, though, who, of course, per­form a kind of a duty of a pub­lic ser­vant.

Hope for the best, get ready for the worst 

Andrei Bas­tunets:

For the time being, the course of the elec­toral cam­paign gives hopes that we will not have what we had at the pre­vi­ous, and one before the pre­vi­ous elec­tions – with search­es at jour­nal­ists’ homes, deten­tions, crim­i­nal cas­es… Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the expe­ri­ence shows that elec­toral cam­paign can­not take place with­out trou­bles. So I bear in mind the say­ing – hope for the best, get ready for the worst.

Ales Antsipen­ka:

I can make a kind of humor­ous fore­cast: after the 11^th, there will be snow, severe frost and prices for food will rise. Because now the weath­er is being con­trolled, and then it will be set loose… To be seri­ous, I think soon we will see what the real eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion is in our coun­try.