E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 10, 2016 - ISSN 1822-5578
(only Russian)
Content:
Introduction
1. Basic trends of October
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics
3.1. One legislator per 110 deputies
3.2. Silver is a noble metal but it tarnishes with age
4. Economics
4.1. Economic growth of developing countries was an anomaly
4.2. "Bollocks to them!" But whom?
4.3. One of the leading reformers in the world
5. Finances
5.1. Three ways to get rid of "redundant" foreign currency
6. Our forecast for November
7. From the IISEPS desktop
Introduction:
Dear readers!
On September 20 the head of state received Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Rusyi and Minister of Agriculture and Food Leonid Zayats with a report. He set them a task to "prepare by November an extended meeting to discuss in details the situation in agriculture and effect of measures aimed at supporting this sphere".
Taking into account the practice of similar tasks, we've supposed that the "extended meeting" would not be held in time. Our suggestion came true. The meeting wasn't held, and not even an ounce of information on it leaked into public space.
This seemingly particular example reminds us about the well-known characteristic of the revolutionary situation made by Lenin: "the tops cannot rule in the old way". Naturally, it's still long until the full loss of ruling ability, but the process is well on track. The crisis of organization gains momentum. Three or four years ago the power was setting tasks but couldn't solve them, today they are often incapable to even start discussing the tasks.
The protracted conflict between Belarus and Russia came to its end in October. We predicted that Russia would win. In reality everything turned out to be more complex. Each of the conflicting sides declared themselves the winner, and it should be regarded as a kind of know-how. Belarus agreed to pay off the $ 281 billion to Russia before October 20, while Russia agreed to decrease the gas price and renew the oil supply in previous capacity.
Let us a cite an excerpt of an article by the main ideologist of Minsk and at the same time the Secretary General of the Communist Party of Belarus Igor Karpenko: "Some would say: a compromise was made. That's true, the oil supply to Belarus will be restored in previous capacity. And, according to the intergovernmental agreement broken by Russia, the price of gas will be decreased. At the same time, they exact a debt from Belarus for paying for the gas according to the price stipulated by this agreement. All in all, Belarus is charged for strictly following agreements achieved on governmental level. And even though we cannot really regard this as a debt, Belarus had to accept this compromise to protect its economy from total lawlessness of Russia".
However, by the time we were preparing this issue of "Infofocus", there was no information on the discharge of obligations taken by the sides.
The credit from IMF is still on the hook, just as we expected. On October 3 during a meeting on cooperation with IMF, Alexander Lukashenko said that super-liberal demands of the Fund have nothing in common "with the policy declared by the President during the first presidential elections, possibly even during the second elections and even now". Nevertheless, the Fund's demands were not turned down. On October 5-7 Belarusian delegation participated in the Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund. There was no decision on allocation of financial help in the end of negotiations, but the sides decided to continue cooperation.
IISEPS executive board
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