Something that went unnoticed due to the international attention focused on Lebanon was the sentencing of Belarussian opposition candidate Alexander Kozulin to 5 1/2 years in prison on July 13. His crime? Leading protest marches following the obviously fraudulent presidential election last March. You’d think he murdered someone or something. What is interesting, however, is that the candidate of the united democratic forces, Alexander Milinkevich, was never arrested, jailed, or even had any of his rallies broken up at the time. What gives?

The Eurasia Daily Monitor gives us a clue:

Kazulin has long had close links to state structures, he has influential contacts in Russia, and his election tactics were notably confrontational and personal (regarding Lukashenka’s private life in particular). He is articulate and personable, and to the presidential administration there is little doubt that he is more feared than other opposition leaders. Lyabedzka and Vyachorka are familiar foes and can be predicted to act according to democratic norms; the same applies to Milinkevich, who is essentially a political outsider who needs to penetrate the mainstream electorate and is better known outside the country than within.

Thus either the president or his associates fear Kazulin. While such apprehension might seem illogical to an outsider, Kazulin’s influence and popularity in Minsk are only too evident, and they are not reflected in his official election returns. Just as Lukashenka had to finish first, so Kazulin needed to finish last, if only so the Leader and/or his cohorts may sleep more peacefully at night.

This comes down to some very basic things that I noticed during the election campaign. Kozulin was brazen, perhaps too much so for the time, and consequently people were hurt and thrown in jail for an unnecessary march. On the other hand, the militia never openly forced the shutdown of the October Square protest led by Milinkevich because he constantly assured the authorities that his followers would not provoke them. And so they didn’t.

What Lukashenko fears the most is Kozulin’s insider portfolio of friends. He was the director of the Belarus state university for many years, and even a minister for Lukashenko at one time, giving him access to people in the country’s extensive bureaucracy. Furthermore, he seems to know so many powerful people in Russia that it is thought that Moscow is financing his campaign. Who knows? The threat that Lukashenko sees is that people from within his own government will begin to support Kozulin if the tides begin to change even in the slightest. Doing away with him may head off that chance.

I make this speculation in parallel to the imprisonment of politician Mikhail Marinych in 2004. He was the “Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus, ex-minister of the Foreign Economical Affairs, MP of the 12th and 13th Supreme Soviet.” He was highly critical of Lukashenko and it appeared that his network within the regime could have split it and caused its downfall. Marinych was arrested and imprisoned on trumped up charges.

Milinkevich, on the other hand, has always been viewed with some skepticism as to his charm. The man spends a lot of time outside Belarus drumming up support for his campaign in the rest of Europe when he has truly, truly not developed a national popularity and grassroots institutionalization. He is certainly a political outsider, starting his campaign from the ground up. Lukashenko does not believe that he will be able to achieve this in the near future. It would take years to achieve this if it were the only factor involved. But with a hike in energy prices by Gazprom in the near future that will threaten Lukashenko’s ability to support his social model, it may be external factors that break down any internal support he has.