E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 2, 2011 - ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)
Content:
Introduction
1. Basic trends of February
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
3.1. In search of constructive people
3.2. Let's struggle for liberation of economic activity!
3.3. There is no Gosplan (State Planning Committee); its cause, however, does live
4. Economics
4.1. Imbalances are singing love songs
4.2. "A bird in the hand" from the minister of finance
4.3. Losses under 150% profitability
5. Finances
5.1. Well-considered actions and the common order
6. Our forecast for March
7. From the IISEPS desktop
Introduction:
Dear readers!
The rise in prices headed the top-news list in February, which was to be expected. Unfortunately, we do not so far have sociological data available to confirm or to refute our forecast concerning the negative dynamics of A. Lukashenko's electoral rating. However, our firm belief that such an event was unavoidable only became stronger in February. During the last winter month information about the record salaries drop in January was added to the rise in prices. "The sacred figure", just like the full moon, emerged from behind the cloud on the eve of the crucial voting and concealed itself again for an uncertain term. The mentioned uncertainty strengthens our confidence in the remake of 2001-2002, when A. Lukashenko's rating sank to the historical minimum of 26%.
Our hypothesis concerning the forthcoming weeding of financial patches of the western vegetable garden began to make successful headway in February. On February, 25 in the course of a meeting with the new government membership the head of state defined the work front for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the near future in the following way: "Your task, Sergey Nikolaevich, is a constant search for serious and influential business tycoons of the world level who have wide contacts and authority in government circles. You must lead them here literally by the hand. We do have something to offer them". It would seem that the official propaganda has been modeling out of A. Lukashenko an image of a defender of the national wealth from the avaricious oligarchs' encroachment only recently, and now it is being suggested that they should be simply dragged to the country.
Our forecast regarding the further untwisting of the repression flywheel also came true. It proved to be not so easy to leave the image of a fighter against the state conspiracy. To a certain extent the events in North Africa, which can be so easily and at the same time so naturally explained by the underhand plotting of the world imperialism, contributed to it.
At the beginning of March Belstat published the trade balance for January. The foreign trade balance constituted minus $ 903 million (in January of 2010 - minus $ 3 million)! This is the beginning Belarusian economy, as well as Belarusian home and foreign policy will have to begin again from in 2011. Due to the fact the Belarusians will probably not be able to live according to the principle "The elections are over-forget about them" during the first year of the fourth five-year plan. That was the point we drew the attention of our readers to in the February forecast.
IISEPS executive board
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