Government: Horses in midstream

Polina Makarova

Summary

The change of government was obviously the major administrative event of 2018. A number of positions in the Council of Ministers and the key positions in the economic bloc were taken by persons, who, by general repute, are basically adhering to liberal values shared with independent economists and international experts. However, they are still not powerful enough to influence the general economic and social policy of the country’s leadership.

As before, their powers are primarily limited by the paternalistic stand of the political leadership, who practice the ‘manual steering’ of social and economic processes.

Trends:

Midstream

The head of state was stating his dissatisfaction with the government’s performance since the very beginning of the year.1 The points of his criticism were pretty much the same: formalism in carrying out president’s instructions, unreasonable optimism, and ignorance when it comes to the actual state of things.

Alexander Lukashenko is almost always dissatisfied with the government. Some intriguing novelties were expected in 2018. The establishment of a Digital Economy Ministry was officially announced in March. Earlier that year, Lukashenko discussed this in detail with Alexander Turchin, then chief of staff in the Council of Ministers.2 Turchin optimistically predicted that the new ministry would be set up as soon as mid-2018. He was appointed deputy prime minister after a little while, but the ministry did not open by the time he specified, although he publicly spoke about the transition to the e-government and coordination of this transition more than once.

In early 2018, high hopes were pinned on e-management. Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said in May that the planned transformation of the decision-making technology would ultimately lead to a transformation of the management system with regard to “the basic functions of a modern government, i.e. healthcare, world standards in education and science, security and legal protection of the population, effective management of state assets and high competitiveness of the national economy.”3

All these remarkable plans were back to scratch in the middle of the year with the change of government. As a result of the president’s trip to Orsha (where over a year and a half, an economic breakthrough did not happen, although Lukashenko ordered to raise the region “from ruins and ashes”), Minister of Architecture and Construction Anatoly Chernykh and Minister of Industry Vitaly Vovk were fired.4 Furthermore, the head of state considered the failure to restore the industrial capacity of the Orsha district not just a failure of the government, but one more example of systematic ignoring of his instructions. Lukashenko was particularly angered by high-ranking officials’ attempts to blame circumstances beyond their control, which made it impossible to achieve the regional development targets.

When in Orsha, Lukashenko demanded that his administration make proposals for the replacement of the entire government. Four days later, the order was executed, and Sergei Rumas, who previously headed the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus, was appointed prime minister together with four deputy prime ministers, Igor Petrishenko, former ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Russia, among them. Vladimir Semashko, who had served as vice premier for over fifteen years, took his office in the Belarusian embassy in Moscow.

Independent experts mostly welcomed the appointment of Rumas as prime minister. Rumas is not afraid of publicity and can find common language with international experts, persist in his opinion and behave with dignity ‘under fire.’ He was one of the heads of the Council of Ministers in the capacity of deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2012, the time of one of the worst economic, financial and foreign policy crises in the contemporary history of Belarus. Rumas advocated a reduction in spending on ineffective state programs and even entered into public debate with economic advisor to the president Sergei Tkachev.5

Speaking highly of the new prime minister as a professional and a man of action, experts agreed that although Rumas will try to carry out independent economic (primarily) policy, he will still be unable to cross the lines firmly drawn by the president. Shortly after the appointment of the new Cabinet, Lukashenko said that the government members were selected to pursue the policy chosen by the people in the presidential election, rather than to determine this policy.

It can be assumed that Rumas, whom some experts called a “crisis manager”, will be capable of stabilizing the lurching ship of the Belarusian economy once again, which has been continually taking water, and even impart some acceleration by achieving GDP growth. But the question whether he can put this ship on a new course is basically rhetorical.

What to handle first?

Development of regions and towns was very high on the to-do list of the Andrei Kobyakov government. However, as the dramatic change of government after Lukashenko’s devastating trip to Orsha showed, this was not enough.

The president officially declared 2018 a Year of the Cradle Land (“Small Motherland”). It turned into Three Years of the Small Motherland (2018–2020) in June.6 In April, the president tasked the government to design a draft concept of the “village of the future”.7 “This is about development of rural settlements, the population of which is engaged not only in agriculture, but also agro-ecotourism, or attracts tourists with restored architectural monuments, like old family manors”, explained Mikhail Rusy, then vice premier.

Several localities did obtain the status of a “village of the future”, but the conceptual content of this innovation has not been brought to public judgment so far. It is also unclear how the improvements under the heading “the village of the future” differ from other numerous redevelopment orders.

Throughout the year, the president was expressing dissatisfaction with the progress that government showed fulfilling his assignment to create highly productive jobs. He said back in March that local administrations not only never heard about this assignment, but had no idea what “highly productive jobs” meant. Their job creation efforts were limited to the prohibition to lay off workers of local enterprises.

Addressing the parliament in 2017, Lukashenko instructed to raise the Orsha district “from ruins and ashes.” (Protests against the notorious decree on “social parasitism” in March 2017 were massive there.) The Council of Ministers got to work. Emergency funds were allocated from the national budget to local industrial and agricultural enterprises. The prime minister went there in May 2018. He said that “the situation at the enterprises of the Orsha district improved”8 mainly thanks to ambitious plans for its improvement.

However, it was not enough to make those plans. On August 13, during Lukashenko’s trip to Orsha, which turned life-changing for the Kobyakov government, the president criticized those plans and the state of four Orsha enterprises. The immediate replacement of the district administration and Lukashenko’s instructions on the procurement of equipment, utilization of production facilities and search for sales orders were not enough either to achieve a breakthrough in economic development of the district. At the end of the year, the district was granted unprecedented incentives, including a special taxation regime and the prohibition to take those charged with economic crimes in custody (as part of business emancipation).9

The year 2019 will show whether these innovations, which humorists call “LOLshore” in social media, will help raise the Orsha district “from ruins and ashes”. In fact, the large-scale investment of national budget funds in industrial and social development of one, more or less arbitrarily chosen district indicates that the implementation of regional economic and social policies remains closely linked with political priorities and is loosely linked with strategic plans of the government.

Two-faced Janus

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the economic ministries made strenuous efforts to improve the international image of Belarus, while actions of defense and security agencies often bring the results of these efforts to nothing. Belarusian Janus turns his kind, friendly face to foreigners (especially those who travel to Belarus visa-free under the new regulations) and organizations (especially if they say something nice about the country or want to assign some important ratings to Belarus). But when it comes to its own people, metaphorically speaking, they see the austere face of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense. The “social” ministries – the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection and the Ministry of Health – are not the vanguard of humanitarian initiatives either.

Last year, as always, Belarus internationally fought for all good against all bad: against modern slavery, human trafficking and online exploitation of children, anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination. Domestically, the country’s leadership still applies a policy of punishment and prohibition.

In March, the president endorsed decree No.1, a revised version of Decree No.3 of 2015, which is known as the decree on “social parasitism” that sparked massive streets protests in the localities where people only saw riots in foreign news. The authors of the new decree obliged local authorities to assist Belarusians in finding jobs, but did not give economic leverage to coerce the unemployed into working.

The database of “parasites” numbered half a million people,10 although the official unemployment rate was below 0.5% (15,000 people). Even according to the ILO methodology (household surveys), the number of the unemployed was around 5%, which is half the number of the “parasites” on the database.11 Having calculated the approximate cost of the database and potential receipts from the full-price utility bills that the employable jobless persons are supposed to pay (it was only about water heating in late 2018), experts started questioning the adequacy of these measures to solve the employment problem.

The responsibility to assist the unemployed in finding jobs imposed on local authorities is no less doubtful. Like the previous attempts to coerce into working economically, decree No.1 will hardly substitute full-fledged and systemic labor and employment policy. Except the high-profile decree on “parasites”, the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection did not propose any other innovative ideas in this area.

The Ministry of Health was shaken by a large-scale corruption scandal that involved over a hundred officials and administrators. Investigators revealed a corrupt scheme of procurement of medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, which not only enriched the involved civil servants, but also drained funds from the state budget.12

The Ministry of the Interior in the face of Minister Igor Shunevich made a number of contradictory statements about traditional family values and individuals who do not share the views of the minister. Shunevich refused to recognize such views as discrimination. “We discriminate the criminals as well to some extent”, he said.13

Information about new, often tragic episodes of hazing in the Belarusian army was coming out into the open throughout the year. The Ministry of Defense denied their systemic nature. Despite emotional statements made by the head of state, the ministry did not take any consistent measures to eradicate this problem.14

Summing up the above, it can be said that problems of public policy and public administration in Belarus remained systemic, and the tools used to resolve them – selective control and the threat of punishment – have not basically changed over the past decade. Accordingly, the replacement of key persons in the Council of Ministers can only change the situation if the functions of the government and its relationship with the political leadership are fundamentally reconsidered.

Conclusion

The main question of 2018 is whether the change of government and the hiring of younger executives with relevant education and, presumably, liberal values will guarantee public policy successes. Despite the encouraging statements of the new prime minister and his deputies, the answer should probably be given based on previous experience of interaction between the government and the political leadership, when the personal traits of the head and the members of the Council of Ministers did not matter that much. It can be assumed that in the key areas (economy, employment, regional development, etc.) government policy will remain not very systemic and consistent, and will continue to rely mainly on control and punishment methods.