Presidential Administration: Between hard line and liberalization

Nikolai Burov

Summary

In 2017, the Presidential Administration was substantially restructured. Its largely reshuffled leadership was tasked to invent a new outreach tool since the social contract has actually been repudiated. Also, the Administration is to optimize the state machinery again, keeping in mind mistakes made in 2013. None of these tasks have been performed in a way that may be described as satisfactory.

The Administration continued patchy reforms of the Belarusian economy, vehemently rejecting any kind of political reform in the country.

Trends:

Staffing solutions

The Presidential Administration entered the year 2017 with a changed composition and new tasks. A woman took the office of the presidential chief of staff for the first time in the history of sovereign Belarus: former Vice Premier Natalia Kachanova was appointed on December 21, 2016. Some media called her the most powerful woman in Belarus.1 Career diplomat Maxim Ryzhenkov, one of the key sports functionaries since 2012, was appointed first deputy chief of staff. Kachanova was set a challenging task and given little time to reformat activities of the Administration with respect to ideology, personnel policy, expert support for economic policy, and legal support for the president. Alexander Lukashenko particularly pointed at the work with appeals filed by individuals as a weak link.

The ideological policy has undergone considerable revision. Deputy chief of staff Igor Buzovsky, who was in charge of ideology, was dismissed from office. The Central Department for Ideology was closed. Its head, assistant to the president Vsevolod Yanchevsky vacated his office as well. As soon as February, both received pretty good appointments: Buzovsky now heads the Central District of Minsk, and Yanchevsky is the High-Tech Park CEO.

New functions were given to Lukashenko’s Press Secretary Natalia Eismont (equal in status to presidential assistant) and presidential assistant Nikolai Korbut. Apparently, the optimization was meant to profoundly reconsider the status of the ideological vertical and the role of ideology. In fact, Yanchevsky’s terms of reference were distributed between Kachanova and Eismont.

At the meeting held February 6, the head of state particularized his view on the optimization of the Administration. He once again spoke about poor discipline and ineffective execution of president’s orders. Earlier, referring to an analysis made by the Administration, Lukashenko said that a great deal of his orders was not carried out. No systemic changes followed, though.

He severely criticized the Presidential Academy of Public Administration, Information and Analytical Center and the National Press Center, but no personnel changes, which usually follow such criticism, were made. Moreover, the employment contract with Rector of the Academy Marat Zhilinsky was renewed.

This criticism once again highlighted the serious problem faced by the Administration–the shortage of qualified personnel and the scarcity of tools to motivate and incentivize civil servants. Although the president set clear tasks, the Administration did not offer a single solution in 2017.

Further steps to optimize the Administration were discussed at the above meeting: to reduce the staff by 30% to 118 persons on payroll, including 108 civil servants. In line with the legislative requirements, the reduction was supposed to be completed by May 1.

The very fact of the optimization is remarkable. A similar optimization was carried out in 2013. Officials could not believe until the last moment that the Administration would be subjected to staff cuts along with other government agencies. A reduction of 40 to 50 jobs in the Administration will save a considerable amount, but, given the status of this institution and the wide range of its functions, it can lead to a functional atrophy.

It is possible that the real hidden motive to optimize the Administration is the intention of the president and his entourage to limit the circle of power beneficiaries, and, on the other hand, to expand the presence of the ‘Family’ in other sectors. There is a fairly stable elite group, which controls the political, economic and security blocs, thus not being part of the Administration (for example, the so-called “court businessmen”).

An important aspect touched upon at the February 6 meeting was the need to elevate the status of presidential assistants/regional and Minsk city inspectors. The Administration has been massaging this idea for years,2 but the very structure of the vertical of power makes it impossible to redistribute powers between the governors and assistants-inspectors. Nevertheless, a number of personnel appointments were made in 2017 towards this end.

Formally, the new composition of the Administration was approved by presidential decree No.40 of February 13, 2017. The number of deputy chiefs of staff was reduced to three, one first deputy among them (Maxim Ryzhenkov, Valery Mitskevich and Nikolai Snopkov). The position of Igor Buzovsky, who was dismissed from office earlier, was officially abolished together with the reformatting of the ideological vertical management. The latter was partially delegated to the chief of staff and partially to Natalia Eismont. Two new positions were introduced: (a) an assistant for legislative and judicial matters and (b) an assistant for the financial credit system development.

The new position of the assistant for the financial credit system development is probably meant to expedite the resolution of disputes between supporters of hawkish monetary policy (primarily the National Bank and partly the Council of Ministers) and advocates of a more dovish policy (post-Soviet directors), and to strengthen the mediation and management by the Administration in the monetary sector.

The introduction of the position of assistant for legislative and judicial matters presumably pursued a similar goal in the context of the development and execution of the ‘decree on parasites’, which caused a great stir.

However, these goals were not achieved to the full extent. The office of the assistant for the financial credit system development remained vacant until March 2018, and the position of assistant for legislative and judicial matters was transformed into assistant for strategic projects shortly after. The appointment of Alexander Kosinets (known for his tough management methods) to this position rather indicates that the country’s leadership stays committed to manual control instead of trying something new. Anyways, Chinese projects, which the government considered to be of high importance, were actually no longer supervised by Kosinets after deputy chief of staff Nikolai Snopkov was appointed chairman of the Belarusian part of the Belarus-China Intergovernmental Cooperation Committee on May 12. Before that, a part of Kosinets’ potential functions was transferred to assistant for general affairs Nikolai Korbut. It should be remembered that many key economic projects remain in the area of responsibility of Viktor Sheiman, head of the Department of Presidential Affairs. Therefore, the current position of Kosinets is apparently much weaker than that of Sheiman when the latter held the office now occupied by Kosinets.

The optimization of the Administration started in 2017 was just a part of a new round of optimization of the state machinery. Like the first round that took place in 2013, it basically aims at staff cuts. The current optimization has largely affected the army and the police, and this probably is its most significant aspect.

At a special meeting on optimization held March 17, it was in fact recognized that it has a limited potential in the current conditions, and that government agencies of small towns, districts and township and village councils were not subject to redundancy.

This was indirectly recognized in the president’s annual address to the nation and the parliament. Lukashenko publicly admitted that, despite previous optimization, the prestige of the civil service was not enhanced.3

On May 22, Kachanova showed Lukashenko an optimization schedule, December 1 being the deadline. On June 20, House Speaker Vladimir Andreichenko made a report on the lower chamber optimization. On September 14, the Administration started monitoring the optimization of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, to some extent, hit Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei.

A meeting on optimization was held in the Administration on October 24. All this shows that the Administration tried to take into account mistakes made during the previous optimization and smooth out negative effects of another reduction in the number of civil servants. Despite this understanding and the mentioned meetings, no fundamentally new approaches to optimization were worked out. Judging by the available information, salaries of civil servants were raised, but, predictably, not much.

Reforms and liberalization

The optimization coupled with the economic recession and mass protests against the ‘decree on parasites’ that shook the country in winter and spring 2017 once again catalyzed long lasting backstage debates on a substantial reform of the state administration system. As before, the Administration, which is always following the president’s will, is one of the main opponents of this process. On April 21, in the address to the nation and the parliament, Lukashenko disconcertingly spoke against the “reformers”, who “are few at the helm of state, but it would be better if there were fewer of them.”4

Criticizing the reforms and reformers, the Administration and some other government bodies took the lead in business liberalization. Deputy chief of staff Valery Mitskevich headed the task group on liberalization. His mandate was confirmed at a meeting with the Administration leadership on June 23. Another former member of the Administration, Vsevolod Yanchevsky, actively lobbied the development of the IT sector as a driver of the country’s economic development. Simultaneously, the Administration gave direct orders to prevent the development of full-fledged market relations in Belarus.

This topic was addressed again on May 2 at a meeting on improving the legal regulation in certain areas of business. The Administration and the government were instructed to deal with reforms extremely cautiously. In fact, the Administration is supposed to preserve the existing political system, thus ensuring the economic viability when the Belarusian socio-economic model is dying. To some extent, the Administration has been looking for a solution since the 2011 crisis. Decree No.7 ‘On the Development of Entrepreneurship’ was signed on November 23.

The elevation of the status of political parties and, possibly, establishment of a full-scale party system in the country is, perhaps, the most intriguing matter when it comes to political reforms. The Administration was working hard on that throughout 2017. As noted in the extensive scientific literature, a transition to partisanship is a common stage of the evolution of most authoritarian regimes. There is no doubt that the Belarusian political establishment would welcome such a transformation, although there are many opponents to it.

Nonetheless, events of 2017, especially two demonstrative postponements of the congress of the NGO Belaya Rus (‘White Russia’), which, according to some sources, could transform into a political party, showed that the Administration’s decision was negative.

War on ‘parasitism’

Throughout 2017, the Administration was closely monitoring the execution of decree No.3 ‘On the Prevention of Social Parasitism.’ It was said that the goal was to re-structure the social contract towards its reduction and tightening in relation to the traditional electorate of the president.5 For the Belarusian authorities the decree is a matter of principle, and yet the outbreak of protests forced them to retreat. The decree was suspended on March 9. The Administration was set a laborious task to retailor the decree having its initial purpose maintained. There were no original ideas in the Administration, and the emphasis was put on the handling of citizens’ appeals, which was pointed at as a weak link in the work of the Administration and local authorities.

This issue was addressed at meetings held February 6 and March 9, during a working trip to the Mogilev region on March 21, at a session of the Administration Board in March and at a meeting on public security, at a meeting on April 7, during the address to the nation and the parliament on April 21, etc. On October 24, the plan to compile a unified database of citizens’ appeals throughout the country was announced together with the task to systematically monitor public sentiment.

These efforts resulted in the predictable absence of any viable version of the decree. The problem was shelved, but not resolved.

Conclusion

In 2017, the Administration continued its grueling work to adapt to new conditions, which does not allow preserving the Belarusian socio-economic model in its old form. The top of the ideological vertical was reformatted partly because of the internal fight against Vsevolod Yanchevsky, who was growing politically stronger at that time, as well as the search for a new ideology of independent development, which has been more and more clearly manifested since 2014. Further attempts were made to give the presidential assistants-inspectors a higher status, and effectuate patchy economic reforms under the strict control of the Administration and president’s minions.

Politically, the Administration sticks to strictly conservative, if not to say reactionary positions, rejecting any proposals to reconsider them, and this situation will hardly change in 2018.

The second major optimization of the state machinery and a significant revision of the social contract topped the 2017 agenda. Despite the close attention to these issues on the part of the Administration, one can hardly expect these tasks to be fulfilled, at least satisfactory, in the near future.