It’s been an unforgettable summer. On a personal note, I have changed my marital status. Yep, not single any more. Our honeymoon was the best journey I’ve ever been to. We traveled Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, France, and Netherlands. Made new friends, swam in the Northern Sea, which turned out to be pretty warm if compared with the Baltic… But the summer is over. It means back to the usual stuff - reporting, policy analyses, research, what have you…

Today is the day when the Belarusian Popular Front is holding its convention. BPF is the oldest and arguably the largest opposition party in the country. The big question of the day was who would become the new leader of the party as the incumbent chairman Liavon Barsceuski had refused to run for reelection. The two candidates were Viktar Ivashkevich and Aliaksiei Yanukevich. The former, BPF old-timer, backed by both Barsceuski and Viacorka, presented himself as a man of action. His strategy would be to secure Barsceuski as the sole candidate of the United Democratic Forces and insist on democratization of the electoral laws. His rival, Yanukevich is of the Front younger generation. Although not a vocal opponent of the old BPF elite, he promised to shake up somewhat stagnant party. Yanukevich offered to withdraw from political unions compromising the party principles but he suggested that a new coalition of rightwing forces should be created.

At least, from my encounters with regional BPF activists, I sensed that Yanukevich was an acceptable choice for many unsatisfied with the old party bosses while Ivashkevich was seen as one of the old tribe.
As the convention neared, seems like it was becoming clear that Ivashkevich was going to lose. The party elite sensed it, too, so when the day X came I guess they tried to play a Barsceuski card again, i.e., to persuade him to run for reelection. Remember how Barsceuski surfaced as a compromise figure when Viacorka and Michalevich clashed at the previous convention without a clear winner. So guess what, this time around, Ivashkevich withdrew making way for Barsceuski to reclaim the throne. His initial refusal to run for reelection disappeared somewhere. He accepted the offer saying that he would spend most of his time preparing for the presidential elections while he would commit majority of administrative functions to his deputy Ivashkevich.

The party members didn’t buy it. Yanukevich came out as a clear winner. As I am writing this, the convention continues. Yanukevich’s chairmanship sounds like a fresh anchor face for BPF, but will it really mean fresh ideas and decisive actions? Time for observation and reflection is necessary.

Another interesting news from the convention is that Ales Michalevic officially announced that he was planning to run for the presidential office. Michalevic is a young politician who unsuccessfully ran for BPF leadership at the previous convention and was ousted from the party by Barseuski people later on. For a while he was absent from national news. Will his effort to return to big politics be successful?