IISEPS — Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Politycal Studies

E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 5, 2012 - ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)

Content:

Introduction
1. Basic trends of May
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
     3.1. Ten breakthrough trends
     3.2. By way of further refinement
     3.3. Full-scale and irreversible
4. Economics
     4.1. Economic growth, result rather than policy
     4.2. After-effects of growth without development
     4.3. Buy more, pay less
5. Finances
     5.1. Thus the landlord has arrived
6. Our forecast for June

Introduction: Dear readers!

It looks as if our forecast regarding the plot of Address-2012 should have been studied by the speech-writers of the head of state. Exactly as we assumed, A. Lukashenko didn't make a step to accommodate the West. He emphatically accused the West of the breakdown in dialog and of the attack "on our country through pressure and sanctions". Another nail we hit on the head was that the problem of the salary rise up to $ 500 appeared the nucleus of the economic cluster; meanwhile, the Government disengaged itself from the obligation of achieving "the holy figure" passing that buck to the top managers of plants and factories. Concerning the impending electoral campaign, A. Lukashenko gave his personal guarantee that the campaign would be conducted "at highest level and in strict conformance with the laws and Constitution of our country". You can bet on it!
Our hopes for release of several more political prisoners failed. Moreover, on the 29th of May V. Parfenkov was included into the list. He was sentenced by the court of the Pervomaysky District of Minsk to 6 months of arrest for violation of the preventive supervision regime.
In March many analysts noted the growth of fixed investment by 50% as compared to February. We assumed that the investment surge might be a sign of a new tendency imposed by the pending Parliament Elections. This assumption proved true to a certain extent. Though in April the investment did reduce by 15.4% as compared to March, it considerably overbalanced the investment in January and February. The wind of elections is growing stronger and stronger all around the country. It is not a mere coincidence that the strengthening of the Belarusian rouble as against the US dollar turned to the weakening of the former.
The issue of the third tranche of EurAsEC credit was resolved on the last day of May, but the CIS Finance Ministers who were sitting in session in Astana had nothing to do with that. It ended up in a simpler and more traditional way: it was V. Putin who arrived in Minsk... According to our expectations, "with a view to the castling in the Russian Tandem, the "new" leaders of Russia would rather not start establishing their policy line with their strategic ally from unleashing another "war".

IISEPS executive board

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