Page 75 - BNE_magazine_06_2020 Growers

bne June 2020
Opinion 75
cancelled by Moldova’s Constitutional Court – and only a mild recession is forecast. However, President Igor Dodon has been deeply at fault in the anti-crisis law, as the government he controls tried to shoehorn into it provisions that are in no way related to the pandemic, such as those concerning duty-free shops, the tobacco industry, free economic zones and mineral resources. Perplexingly, despite this Dodon remains the country’s most popular politician by a wide margin.
However, in general it is clear that politicians of all orientations fear what the recession will do to their futures. Thousands of deaths and a crushing recession aren’t good for any government.
That’s why in Poland the ruling right-wing PiS government was insisting on going ahead with the May 10 presidential election as scheduled despite warnings on both public health and democracy grounds. Its candidate, incumbent Polish President Andrzej Duda, was on course for a knock-out victory in the first round, mainly because he was the only candidate out in public during the lockdown. PiS was wary of postponing the election, fearing the coronavirus-induced economic crisis would dent Duda’s chances of remaining in power.
PiS only backed down at the very last minute, when party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski reached a deal with the leader of PiS’s junior partner in the ruling coalition just four days before the vote. It’s now likely to take place in July or August, by which time Duda will have to campaign in the new reality of growing unemployment, decreasing wages and company bankruptcies, as bne IntelliNews’ Warsaw correspondent reported.
Neighbouring Hungary effectively created the EU’s first dictatorship when the parliament adopted legislation granting extraordinary powers to the government for an unlimited period on March 30. The government was given the go-ahead to extend the state of emergency without a time limit and rule by decree as long as the state of emergency is in place.
The government took advantage of the legislation to introduce a new law – not particularly connected to the pandemic – ending legal gender recognition for transgender people.
At the moment, there is a tendency to rally around existing leaders during the time of crisis, but this will not last. People will start assessing their leaders more critically as the crisis continues.
There are already signs of discontent, with “pots and pans” protests by locked down citizens in a growing number of cities, and thousands of people coming out onto the streets for a protest on bicycles in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.
In recent years the Western Balkans have seen sporadic waves of anti-government protests in countries such as Albania, Montenegro and Serbia. Lockdowns have put paid to these
for the time being – though there have been pots and pans protests against the severity of the restrictions in Serbia – but the grievances, usually concerning the lack of opportunities for opposition parties to dislodge ruling parties, remain and will resurface.
By contrast, elsewhere in the region recent history has shown protest movements based on practical issues directly relevant to people’s lives have gained more momentum than those
on principles such as democracy, a prime example being the thousands strong protests in Russia over unsafe landfills.
The recessions caused by the pandemic are already directly affecting millions of lives, and this will not be immediately alleviated with the lifting of lockdowns. The longer economies are shut down, the deeper the damage will be.
Recent polls from Russia show President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings are slipping sharply. In the latest from independent pollster the Levada Center, Putin’s approval rating has slipped to its lowest level in more than two decades, 59% in April down from 63% in March, though admittedly still high by Western standards.
The public have been disappointed by Putin’s hands-off approach to managing the government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic and Russia’s poor performance in fighting the virus, bne IntelliNews reported.
In Belarus, the authorities have clamped down on those that question their handling of the crisis. Early this month, the authorities revoked the media accreditation of a news crew of the Russian Kremlin-controlled television Channel One and deported its correspondent from the country after his report about the snowballing coronavirus crisis. Lukashenko slammed Russia's media for publishing “disgusting information” on the epidemic.
Belarusian law enforcers then detained popular local blogger Sergei Tsikhanovski, who has been touring Belarus in a camper van for more than a month and making videos about local problems during the coronavirus outbreak, but this sparked protests by his supporters.
There has been a lot of discussion about how the lockdowns are bad for democracy, by temporarily taking away people’s freedoms, and leaving open the question of whether they will be returned.
The crisis has also been seen as bad for the EU, where member states unilaterally imposed lockdowns and closed borders, whether they were Schengen countries or not.
Yet the crisis could be even worse for the authoritarian leaders who responded with denial or lack of action. They are still face more deaths and hospitalization as other countries begin to lift restrictions. And that will only stoke even more resentment.
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