Security Agencies: ‘Reformers’ gain a footing in new positions

Alexey Medvetsky

Summary

Last year’s reform of law enforcement agencies was carried out by a predetermined schedule and, following a centralization of the investigative branch, led to a centralization of the legal expertise branch under the auspices of the president, which enabled the ruling group to tighten control over public officers, the political establishment and private business before the 2015 presidential campaign, and to a wider extent in the context of risks and opportunities of the Eurasian integration. Security and law enforcement agencies gained a footing in high-earning public industries, primarily the foreign trade in potash fertilizers and construction. The interdependence between the incumbent president and new power elites remains heavy, which makes the result of the upcoming presidential election absolutely predictable, as there is no other powerful force outside the security bloc.

Trends:

New circuit of control over the system of justice

The apparent paradox of the reform of Belarusian law enforcement agencies launched in 2011 is that the president first set the task to slim down their workforce and trim out functions they were not supposed to perform. However, as a result of this personnel and functional optimization, new agencies were formed: the Investigative Committee in 2012 and the State Committee for Legal Expertise in July 2013. This gives reason to believe that the political goal of the functional reorganization was to tighten presidential control over security and law enforcement agencies and other elites emerged in the government and business.

For instance, the Investigative Committee formed in 2012 enabled the ruling group to take control over pre-trial investigation: investigative powers were entirely lost by the Prosecutor’s Office, Ministry of the Interior, State Control Committee’s Financial Investigation Department and partly by the Committee for State Security (KGB).1

The same happened in 2013 when the Committee for Legal Expertise was created, but this time eight different agencies had to detach their expert units, which were united into a single committee directly controlled by its initiator, the president. The staff was thus reduced 15%.2

The new circuit of control over the system of justice makes it possible to open criminal cases and carry out pre-trial examination and investigation not involving the oldest agencies – the Interior Ministry and the KGB.

Meanwhile, the oldest and largest law enforcement agency of the country – the Interior Ministry – is losing its power as a result of consistent and well-directed actions. The Directorate for Internal Affairs in Transport was abolished in early 2013. Simultaneously, a General Directorate for Ideology was created. The greater public awareness of crime statistics and wider community outreach can be regarded as one of the positive effects of this questionable functional restructuring.3

A public advisory council was formed at the Interior Ministry in March. It includes representatives of government authorities, culture and business. On the contrary, activities of the Investigative Committee are not given much publicity. The Committee still has no official website. It only communicates with the public through its spokespersons. The results achieved by now suggest that the long-term goal of the reform is to turn the Interior Ministry into an agency primarily focused on safety of the ordinary people, while justice for the elites will be mostly a prerogative of new bodies, first of all the Investigative Committee.

Meanwhile, a restructuring of the elites is observed in law-enforcement agencies themselves. As noted above, the Investigative Committee leadership is mainly composed of former workers of the Prosecutor’s Office. The same trend is apparent when it comes to formation of the State Committee for Legal Expertise. The Committee is headed by career prosecutor Andrei Shved, former deputy prosecutor general and former vice chairman of the Investigative Committee. Former deputy chief of the investigation unit of the Prosecutor General’s Office Maxim Voronin is one of his assistants. Two other assistants, Yuri Ovsiyuk and Vladimir Podobed, transferred to the Committee from the State Forensic Medical Examination Office, and one more, Sergei Yevmenenko, come from the Interior Ministry’s Criminal Expertise Centre.

The redistribution of powers and areas of influence between law enforcement agencies is going quietly. At least, inevitable interdepartmental antagonisms do not come out into the open, except for a criminal case by the KGB against a lieutenant colonel of the Investigative Committee suspected of taking bribes, which was published on the Internet in December 2013. That story soon died out and no news from official sources has followed. Personnel rearrangements in other security and law enforcement agencies also went smoothly without any visible agitation.

The growing number of border violation reports were stirring up public concern when former State Secretary of the Security Council Leonid Maltsev was appointed chairman of the State Boundary Committee (he replaced Alexander Boechko), and Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Arkhipov was dismissed from office on a charge of power abuse. In December, career officer Alexander Mezhuev became the new head of the Security Council, the center of coordination of all defense and law enforcement activities in Belarus, which indicates the continuity of policy established by previous Security Council Secretary Maltsev. This arrangement suggests that the ruling group has enough leverage to control security agencies to prevent sharp conflicts involving outside forces.

Non-core functions’: securocrats get legalized in businesses

The situation with the Belarusian Potash Company was the most high-profile event in 2013, which highlighted the growing influence of security officials in contemporary Belarus. In May, during the next round of talks with Suleiman Kerimov, the controlling stockholder in Uralkali, President Lukashenko presented two curators of the negotiations from the Belarusian side: his oldest son Viktor Lukashenko, Assistant to the President for National Security, and KGB chief Valery Vakulchik. The institution of ‘curators’ is informal, because Development Bank Chairman of the Board Sergei Rumas was officially heading the delegation of Belarus. Further developments showed that Belarusian law enforcers were strongly determined to take serious political risk to protect interests of big government business that provides guaranteed currency supplies to the country.

On August 26, 2013, after unsuccessful negotiations with Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich, the KGB detained Uralkali CEO Vladislav Baumgertner at the Minsk airport on a charge of abuse of power. The Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case, the Investigative Committee conducted investigation, the Interior Ministry put persons involved in the case on the Interpol’s wanted list, and the State Control Committee started an inspection of the Belarusian Potash Company. The high level of coordination and the high rate of actions taken by several departments at once imply that they were managed from one center, most likely the Security Council. As a result, despite the political pressure on the part of Russian elites and the Dmitry Medvedev Cabinet, the Belarusian side managed to lead the case to Baumgertner’s extradition to Russia.

It should be recognized that in this case Minsk successfully used contradictions inside Russian elites and managed to enlist support of an influential group of Russian functionary and businessman Igor Sechin.4 This conflict did not result in substantial economic benefits for the Belarusian budget and the export of potash fertilizers. It however helped security officials to extend their formal and informal influence on the Belarusian Potash Company, which even hired several former KGB officers.

An inspection of the construction sector was carried out in the same manner, but this time without comprehensive international media coverage. An ad hoc group headed by presidential chief of staff Andrei Kobyakov included representatives of the KGB and State Control Committee, who not only used their authority in dealing with construction market players, but also increased their presence in the lucrative construction business. In particular, government decree No.798 on the regulations on tenders to select customers (developers) for construction of apartment buildings, except luxury ones in Minsk and regional centers issued on September 10, 2013 entitled authorized representatives of the State Control Committee, KGB and Interior Ministry to attend sessions of tender committees as observers.

Security lobby and the national budget

he reform of law enforcement agencies, as well as the started preparation of a reform of the Belarusian armed forces, elevates the status of security officials in the country leadership, which is seen in the budget allocation. In 2013, the collective lobby of security and law enforcement agencies managed to significantly increase their share in the earmarked budget spending in 2014, which remains the main channel of their funding (see table 1).5

Articles of expenditure 2011 2012* 2013 2014*
National defense, including: 5.2 5.2 5.0 5.5
Defense and the armed forces of the Republic of Belarus 4.8 4.8 4.6 5.0
Judicial branch, law enforcement and security enforcement 7.8 8.1 8.6 10.0
Interior Ministry agencies 3.5 3.3 3.4 3.9
Prosecutor’s Office agencies 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.3
Border Guard agencies 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.9
Correctional system agencies and organizations 0.8 0.8 0.8 0.8
State security agencies 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.8
Emergency situations agencies and units 0.8 0.9 1.0 1.0
Total, budget spending, trillion Belarusian rubles 51.95 95.88 121.72 128.59
Table 1. The share of funding of major defense, security and law enforcement agencies in the total expenditure of the national budget, %

*Data for 2011–2012: the actual budget expenditures; data for 2013–2014: earmarked expenditures. The calculation was made by the author on the basis of data specified in the respective laws on the national budget.

Contrary to the very idea of the human resources and functional optimization, there are more security agencies now and more money has to be allocated to support them. If the spending plan for 2014 is implemented as expected, Belarusian security, defense and law enforcement agencies can set an all-time funding record with 15.5% of the aggregate budget expenditure, although the monetary allowance in some of the agencies, especially on the lower and middle levels, remains small, and commanders have to take questionable measures. For instance, the president allowed officers of the Ministry for Emergency Situations to have side jobs out of hours.6 The underfunding problem and side job encouragement affect the overall performance and create conditions for corrupt practices.

Conclusion

The reform of security agencies in Belarus is controlled by the ruling group, which uses both mild and harsh methods: the country leadership allows them to engage in profitable businesses and takes ruthless disciplinary actions if worse comes to worst. As a result, the painful redistribution of powers and areas of influence between security and law enforcement agencies is going quietly, which indicates a high level of mutual trust between securocrats and President Lukashenko. The new circuit of control over the system of justice created on the basis of the Investigative Committee and the State Committee for Legal Expertise increases the dependence of all governmental and nongovernmental elites of Belarus on the incumbent president and his entourage, which significantly reduces the likelihood of political continuation of power in Belarus in view of the 2015 presidential election.

The fact that the entire circuit is fully controlled by the president alone remains a major risk factor. Alexander Lukashenko is still the sole credible center for accommodation of interests of new security elites, political establishment and business. An increasing number of the agencies resulted from the reform can pose another risk. In this case, if the underfunding problem persists, it will be an extremely complicated task to harmonize their interests, and open interagency conflicts with the involvement of third parties are a definite possibility.