Will they stay or will they go?
Updates on prior forecasts about post-election US and the crisis in Belarus
I just want to do a quick update on two of the forecasts that I have done. First on the US elections and what might come afterwards and second on Lukashenko and the future of Belarus.
I know everyone is focused on the election results and I will go off the bat and say that my forecast is about 20 to 25% for a Trump win and 75 to 80% for a Biden win. Here I am a bit higher than the aggaragate of my fellow “Superforecasters” at Good Judgment, who are at 15% for Trump and 84% for Biden. Here is the screenshot from October 28th but check out the public dashboard yourself for updates.
My forecast is based on the regular election process without courts getting involved. If we end up having the courts involved extensively, then I think it's anybody's game. There are too many unknowns at that stage, both at the local, state, as well as federal level and whether this would go to Supreme court or not. So if that ends up being the case, I would say 50/50 likelihood of either one of them winning, which means that I actually don't know. It will be very uncertain and unchartered territory at that stage.
But as I said before, I think the more interesting or perhaps one should say the more concerning thing is not the election results themselves per se, but that the instability and uncertainty in American politics is likely to continue regardless of the election results. So all the focus has been mainly on the election results naturally, but I am personally more concerned about both the transition period, if there is a Biden victory or a second Trump term in which significant number of Americans perceive Trump as an illegitimate president. We need to focus more on those. In either case I think that the political instability and the legitimacy crisis in the US will continue well into 2021. The implications of that are a lot more important than who the winner is if it happens through the regular election process. So I think the best outcome is a clear winner emerging with the regular election process - without the courts getting involved and other political-legal battles at the State level - regardless of whoever wins in that way, whether it's Trump or Biden. That still wouldn’t solve the deep polarization problem in America but at least the damage to the American institutions would be somewhat contained. Keep in mind that I think there is 1 in 5 to 1 in 4 chance that Trump could win the electoral college without necessarily having the courts involved so don’t assume that a clear winner means necessarily a Biden win. Many seems to be doing just that and that is the road to the scenario I called “delegitimized Presidency” previously.
The second issue is Belarus and the future of Lukashenko. My initial forecast was about 75% Lukashenko going to exile. I revised that down to 60 to 65% later on when the opposition failed to shift the opinion of the Belarussian elite, as well as of the security forces. Two developments in the past couple of days forced me to revise my estimate even further down to about 50% of Lukashenko leaving office, either going to exile or forced from the office and 50% of him managing to ride this out by perhaps increasing repression. The first development is the call for a general strike by the opposition leader, which suggests an escalation of tactics in order to solidify support and force the regime's hand.
The second development is the signals coming out of the Belarussian security forces that they are more willing to use lethal force against the protestors. They have been increasing the level of violence in the past week with the use of stunt grenades and today annoucements from the Interior Minister highlighted that they might use live ammunition against"sabotage or terror attack".
That suggests again an escalation in tactics and more willingness to use violence against the peaceful protesters by the Belarussian security forces. Soon enough things could come to head and we might end up having some sort of inflection point and we'll have a much better idea whether this would go on or not.
So I defaulted back to the base rate of success for color revolutions that is attempted non-violent overthrow of authoritarian regimes, which ranges from 40 to 50% in the past 20 years or so. The opposition fails to garner sufficient material support from the security forces and international community is not offering much beyond word. Putin seems to be sticking with Lukashenko for now. So that increases Lukashenko’s chance of riding this out from a 20% to 25% to 50%. And if he can hold onto until Christmas and perhaps managed to limit or disrupt the call for general strike, he could continue to hold onto power and ride this one out as well. I have a feeling that I’ll revisit my forecast on this soon.
Anyway that is it for now from me. “Interesting” (for those who are watching from far away) and anxious (for those on the ground) few weeks are waiting us all, from the US to Belarus I am afraid. As always please share it with friends, colleagues, family and others and please let me know what you think in the comments below.