First it was September, then July, now March??

The Parliament in Belarus voted Friday to hold the countryés next presidential election in March, opening an accelerated campaign between its authoritarian leader, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, and a beleaguered opposition movement. The election will be a watershed for Belarus, which Mr. Lukashenko has led since 1994 with an increasingly repressive hand. He has revived symbols and policies of the countryés Soviet past, eroded personal and political freedoms and stifled all forms of dissent.

The democratic opposition – now unified behind a single candidate, Aleksandr Milinkevich – has called for a free election, but its leaders doubt that one will take place. They have increasingly focused their attention on mobilizing people for mass protests like those in Ukraine last year after that countryés fraudulent presidential election.

“If our campaign is effective, then we will get people out into the street,” Mr. Milinkevich said in an interview this week while campaigning in the western Belarussian city of Brest. “This is the last chance for us, the last battle.”

The election has raised the specter of a new and possibly violent confrontation over democracy following popular upheavals in two other post-Soviet nations, Georgia and Ukraine, and more suspect elections recently in two others, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

With 10 million people, Belarus borders new members of the European Union that have openly called for democratic change there, as has the United States. During a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in May, President Bush called for “free and fair elections” in Belarus. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Belarus “the last true dictatorship in central Europe.”

“It is time for change to come,” she said in April.

But I doubt it will come. Lukashenko is striking in his despotism not by a desire to use the country as a means to make money, as many other recently fallen authoritarian in the post-Soviet space, but to maintain power at any cost whatsoever. Though Georgia’s Shevardnadze and Ukraine’s Kuchma were corrupt, they never fired on the people of their countries. Lukashenko would, and with full Russian backing and spin should he have to do so.

An attempt at mass protest this early on would result in failure and death. Think Andijon, but closer to home. This is exactly why the day is being changed to such an early date. It will be tough for candidates to register, there will be virtually no time to campaign, and certainly not enough time to build up the network of activists and sympathizers necessary to carry out a colored revolution. An early election was held in Kazakhstan recently for this very reason, and Nazarbaev got off without any trouble.

Expect the situation in Belarus to worsen drastically in the coming months, as the current leadership has no interest in fooling or impressing western observers. A security bill passed this month criminalizes the training of activists to participate in street demonstrations, and even further illegalizes “defaming” the country abroad in any way.

According to br23, the KGB chief had a little something to say: “Some of these amendments were included for the specific persons. You????????ll learn about it soon. Wait for the first criminal cases Äto be openedÅ on December 20. KGB has all the evidence. About two-three thousand youngsters got under the influence of our enemies who try to destabilize situation in Belarus.??????? And further added that, “the law was implemented in order to avoid events that took place in Ukraine and Georgia.”

How unexpected. I’d take his word for it.