Belarus: improving political engagement with diaspora communities
How do you sustain an opposition movement when your government has banned political parties? Political activist Ivan Kravtsov talks about his work during the 2020 Belarus election campaign and the challenges of politics in exile.
Ivan is the executive secretary of the Coordination Council of Belarus and a key figure in his country’s opposition movement. He was forced to flee Belarus in September 2020 and was later sentenced to 1 years in prison in absentia. He is taking part in the John Smith Trust 2024/25 Belarus leaders in exile fellowship programme.
In the run-up to the 2020 Belarus election, Ivan joined former banker Viktar Babaryka’s presidential campaign alongside Maria Kalesnikava. “This was the first time in 30 years that a high-level candidate had emerged who could challenge Lukashenka’s regime. I think Belarusians were very energised,” Ivan says.
At the same time, social and economic factors added to the momentum for change. Economic liberalisation meant attitudes towards the state were changing, while Lukashenka’s denial and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread disillusionment.
2020 election campaign
Ivan, who comes from a private sector background, managed the communications for Babaryka’s campaign. “I was responsible for ensuring that our executive teams, social media managers and PR people were aligned with the board’s decisions,” he says.
After Barbaryka was arrested in June 2020, Ivan and his colleagues pivoted the campaign to support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Veronika Tsepkalo and Maria Kalesnikava. The trio emerged as leaders of the movement uniting the three opposition parties and became a symbol of the protests.
“When we started the rallies in July, we were very positive about the possibility of change because this was the largest mass protest since 1994. But we were unsure of what would happen after the election,” Ivan says. “What you hope for when there are such massive protests is that someone in the political elite will come out and support the people.”
Arrest and exile
But by the beginning of September, many people in the movement had been arrested and no one from the elites had voiced their support. By this point, Ivan was more pessimistic. He says: “For me and Maria, our arrests were just a matter of time. But we were not predicting the arrests would result in such severe prison sentences. Before 2020, the average detention for political opponents was one to two years. We were expecting two years in prison to be the maximum risk.”
Following his arrest, Ivan was forced to flee Belarus. Despite attempts to deport her, Maria chose to stay in the country, tearing up her passport at the border. She was sentenced to eleven years in prison and Barbaryka to 14 years. On 8 January 2025, the first photos and video of Babaryka appeared after over 700 days of incommunicado detention.
Ivan has written a book about the events of 2020. He wants to dispel myths and highlight the central roles of Babaryka and Kalesnikava. “It was a targeted, focused and planned campaign,” he says. “The message is that even smart work will not have an effect without structural changes in society. But you can spoil the opportunity by not being focused and professional.”
Coordination Council of Belarus
After Tsikhanouskaya claimed victory in the election and was forced into exile, the Coordination Council was set up to represent the protestors and try to negotiate a peaceful transfer of power.
As one of the founding members of the Coordination Council, Ivan argues it has shifted a lot from its original purpose. “It is now more like a political party in exile with a clear platform and connected to a specific leadership,” he says. “Tsikhanouskaya is like the party leader and the cabinet is like a party council, elected from the Belarusian diaspora.
“I’m in a different party – Viktar Babaryka’s team – so my role as executive secretary of the Coordination Council is operational. I’m perceived as a neutral figure in this context. You need a neutral figure to own the infrastructure.”
Challenges of exile
Ivan believes the biggest challenge for any opposition party in exile is the lack of political opportunity. “People don’t understand why they need to be involved,” he says. “This party is not driving policy work in a real parliament, to influence people’s lives. For a Belarusian in Poland, his life is influenced by the Polish Parliament, not the Coordination Council.”
In May 2024, the Coordination Council held its first election. People within Belarus couldn’t vote – any show of support risked a jail sentence – so the constituency was the 300,000 Belarusians living abroad. The election highlighted a clear disengagement among the diaspora, with only around 7,000 votes cast.
Ivan believes failing to engage with the diaspora is a missed opportunity. He says: “These communities offer an effective means of advocacy. Some of them have foreign citizenship and can leverage legal mechanisms in the countries where they live. They were very much engaged in 2021 and 2022. Now we need more sustainable structures to work with them.”
Improving engagement
Ivan’s action plan for his John Smith fellowship will focus on improving engagement with the diaspora and implementing feedback loops with voters.
“We don’t have control over Lukashenka,” he says. “We don’t have control over the political context. But, as a secretary of the Coordination Council, I have some control over improving the effectiveness of the cooperation with the diaspora constituencies.
“My idea is to leverage the authority and expert capacity of UK organisations that have a solid representation process and put some infrastructure in place to help. I’m hoping to meet with representatives of local authorities and political parties to learn about their infrastructure. Do they have digitised forms of interaction with their constituencies? What formal obligations do representatives have to interact with their electorate? How are they organised?”
Struggle of attrition
Looking to the future, Ivan takes a philosophical view. “I think it’s feasible that we’ll arrive at the point when the political system is much more democratic than it is now,” he says. “I’m not pushing myself to have a deadline. States appear, and states disappear.
“There was no Belarusian state before 1991. This is a big accomplishment, in the sense that we are a sovereign state. Now we know we need to improve the governance. Any leader will eventually die, just as I will die. But I’m younger than Lukashenka, so my age gives me hope. This is a struggle of attrition.”
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