BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/12/2006

2006 Review: For Belarus' authoritarian president, 2006 was a good year

By Tatiana Shebet Dec 28, 2006, 12:26 GMT

Minsk - It has been a very good year indeed for Aleksander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of the former Soviet republic Belarus.

True, there has been some negative publicity. Most human rights protection agencies still lump Lukashenko in with unsavory company, usually mentioning the late Slobodan Milosevic, Fidel Castro, or even Saddam Hussein.

But that's abroad. At home in marshy Belarus, Lukashenko is the most popular man in the country - and he has the results of a presidential election to prove it.

Undeterred by a constitution mandating only two terms as Belarusian president, Lukashenko ran for and won a third term in office in March. He probably would have won even without the vote fraud alleged by international election monitors.

Aleksander Lukashenko is popular - and it's not just because he updated his haircut, trimmed his once-fearsome moustache and has taken to wearing well-cut suits, making his bullet-proof vest almost invisible (Although, most Belarusians will say that all helped).

Day and night this year Belarusian television and radio has hyped a (for Belarus) revolutionary new consumer product: real estate credit. For the first time in more than a decade, since the hyper- inflation following the break-up of the Soviet Union, even the humblest of Belarusians can dream of buying an apartment.

The message beamed on Belarusian airwaves was: 'Thanks to Lukashenko, we have credit!'

Social services in Belarus continued to work during 2006. Trash was picked up, public transportation functioned, and basic medical care and education was available for all. If bribes were needed to grease the system, their value was small (typically boxes of candy or bottles of vodka) compared to the fat packages of currency frequently demanded by bureaucrats in neighbouring Ukraine and Russia.

Belarusian police held crime, organized and conventional, well under control this year. An unescorted woman can walk the streets of Minsk, at night, without fear.

Of course, it was a different story for the few anti-Lukashenko Belarusians. After the March elections, a few thousand protestors took to the streets to demonstrate against Lukashenko's win, reasonably arguing that an election where one of the candidates has total control of the national media, is hardly fair.

Lukashenko allowed foreign reporters into the country, permitted demonstrators to pitch tents in Minsk's main square, and made Belarusian police the picture of restraint. Once the foreign reporters left, the police struck, using clubs and tear gas.

The demonstrators the police caught went to court on public disorder charges. Almost all of them were found guilty - the longest jail sentence handed down was over five years.

Lukashenko has won the battle for the hearts and minds of the older generation. Unlike in truly destitute former Soviet republics like Moldova or Tadjikistan, a Belarusian retiree can afford medicine, a trip to one's relatives, and meat on the table almost every day.

And as the Belarusian national television channel Bel-1 points out 'The fruits of our president's efforts have no analogue elsewhere in the former Soviet Union!' More than one-third of the Belarusian population is retirement-age.

Even the chronic complaint of youth, not just in the former Soviet Union but all across Europe - you finish your education and there are no jobs - finds little traction under Lukashenko's regime.

The Belarusian government has begun an intensive programme of resettling lands polluted by the Chernobyl nuclear power accident, and decent pay and free housing is available to anyone willing to move in and work even in agriculture.

The urban proletariat is doing even better, with Belarus' state- run factories paying workers between 400 and 2,000 dollars a month, depending on experience.

'This (real job opportunities for Belarusian youth) perhaps more than anything else has allowed the government to prevent outbreaks of protest,' said Yaroslav Romanchiuk, a Belarusian political scientist.

Perhaps the sweetest success for Lukashenko has been the failed Western campaign to isolate him. Russian investment is flowing in, Belarusian machinery has a growing market in the Middle East, and the Chinese are talking not just sales but setting up their own factories in the country.

As Belarusians sit down to their holiday New Years' tables, the overwhelming majority will have plenty of food and drink. Many will toast their president voluntarily - not really worried that raising a toast to his removal from office might land them in jail.

c 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Source:

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/features/article_1237426.php/2006_Review_For_Belarus_authoritarian_president_2006_was_a_good_year