Page 74 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

74 Opinion
bne June 2020
Erdogan in Turkey and Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the UK have handled the pandemic poorly – or if the ensuing economic hardship could give new impetus to the populist cause.
During an online debate organised by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in April, economists were divided over whether the crisis would encourage populism or if, as EBRD chef economist Beata Javorcik argued, it would “expose the incompetence of populists”.
“We see many populist governments fail in fighting this crisis, by not delivering timely and competent responses,” said
her predecessor in the post, Sergei Guriev, now professor of economics at Sciences Po, who expressed the hope this would lead to a shift away from populism – “or maybe not. The populists are very good at spinning their message,” he acknowledged.
Within the broader CEE/Eurasia region, clear differences
are emerging between the countries whose political leaders responded quickly and decisively by imposing strict lockdowns as early as mid-March, and those that responded with denial.
Until a few days ago, the government of Tajikistan insisted there were no cases at all in the impoverished Central Asian country, despite the return of tens of thousands of migrant workers from virus hotspot Moscow (few of whom were quarantined on arrival) and a suspiciously large number
of cases of pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. As late as March 26, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon’s Facebook page shared photos of the leader on stage for Nowruz celebrations surrounded by crowds of people.
When it comes to why the Tajik authorities denied the existence of any positive cases for so long, the reasons are likely to be a combination of an effort to prevent panic buying leading to shortages of food or medical equipment, and the difficulties in funding the economy through a lockdown in the former Soviet Union’s poorest nation. Most of the population have no savings at all.
Dushanbe then made an abrupt switch to what looked like virus control: closing schools, suspending food exports and banning mass events, while continuing to deny there were any cases. But the long period of denial is likely to have allowed the spread of the virus within the country, even though many Tajiks were already taking their own precautions such as wearing masks in public and eating garlic to guard against infection.
Secretive fellow Central Asian nation Turkmenistan remains one of the few countries worldwide to still claim it is coronavirus-free. Reports from within the country by media such as RFE/RL say even doctors are banned from uttering the word “coronavirus” and those that mention the pandemic publicly face arrest.
Should a major epidemic break out in Turkmenistan the president and those under him would be very much to blame
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– for the secrecy and lack of information, and for organising events such as National Horse Day and a mass cycling rally, both of which had the potential to become super-spreader events.
Belarus’ authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is another denier, not of the pandemic itself but of its seriousness. Back in March, Lukashenko told Belarusians to take to the fields and drive tractors to fend off the virus, and told his government the pandemic is nothing more than a “psychosis”, to be treated with spirits and saunas. Appeals from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for a lockdown to be imposed fell on deaf ears. Not coincidentally, Belarus now has the largest outbreak in the CEE region after Russia, with 19,255 cases as of May 7, and the largest in per capita terms with one case per 491 people.
Russia now has the fifth largest tally of infections worldwide after the US, Spain, Italy and the UK, and new infections have been growing by over 10,000 a day in recent days. Moscow didn’t go to the extremes of denial seen in Central Asia – though as in Tajikistan there was a spike in “pneumonia” cases long before major coronavirus outbreak was confirmed – but the authorities were slow to act. The lockdown wasn’t
“We see many populist governments fail in fighting this crisis, by not delivering timely and competent responses”
announced even in Moscow, which now has around half of all the cases in Russia, until the very end of March, a good two weeks after most of Central and Southeast Europe.
Turkey took a similar approach to Russia; after Ankara denied for weeks there were any cases at all, a fairly major outbreak was reported. Then suddenly the authorities announced at 22:00 local time on April 10 that a curfew in 31 cities would begin in two hours’ time. The start of the lockdown was predictably chaotic.
Erdogan had been under pressure to impose a lockdown, but as bne IntelliNews reported at the time, the Turkish economy was in a fragile state. On March 30, Erdogan commented: “Turkey is a country that needs to continue production
and keep the wheels turning under all conditions and circumstances.”
Then there are the leaders who responded to the crisis, but got the response badly wrong. Moldova had 4,476 confirmed cases as of May 7, which is one of the larger epidemics in the region, especially when looked at in per capita terms.
Chisinau has lined up financing – initially including a controversial $200mn loan from Russia that has since been