Page 60 - bneMag February 2021_20210202

60 I Eastern Europe bne February 2021
COUNTRY REPORTS
Check out IntelliNews
Pro’s Country Reports covering the 30 countries in Central & Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States.
A monthly round up of the most important economic, finance, business and political events, the reports are aimed at busy professional investors and companies that need to keep on top of the story.
To subscribe to the reports delivered by email get in touch with our sales staff for a trial.
T. +44 203 633 2008
E. sales@intellinews.com
Or go to bne.eu/welcome to see samples of this and other products.
channels,” the Russian-language news site reported.
The text of the speech also talks about the need for constitutional reform that will transfer power to the parliament, which will be as loyal to Russia as possible.
Another document seen by journalists
is the founding programme of the puppet party “The Right of the People”. Its creation has not yet been officially announced. Judging by the programme, the Kremlin expects to divert
discontent towards “constitutional reforms”, hoping that this will distract Belarusians from the fight against the stolen elections.
“We do not support violent revolutions and revolutionary transformations,”
the programme proclaims. “We are supporters of decisive reforms that will form solid conditions and mechanisms for prompting the dignity of citizens and
mentioned Babariko’s name in his talks with Lukashenko, who would also be acceptable to the population. However, analysts believe the Kremlin is unlikely to support Babariko as candidate for Prime Minister and will prefer someone it can more fully rely on.
It becomes clear from the programme that the Kremlin is planning the transition of Belarus to a parliamentary- presidential republic. As part of
this compromise it is also likely that Lukashenko will be left in office but stripped of most of his executive powers as a face-saving compromise, before he retires sometime later.
In addition, there are plans for large- scale privatisation of the public sector, “dismantling of censorship” and “respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual,” the document says.
Russian businessmen would be happy to move into yet another “near-abroad”
“We do not support violent revolutions and revolutionary transformations”
the dignity of the Republic of Belarus,” the programme says in its manifesto, as cited by The Insider.
The idea of transferring power from the president to the parliament
has been floated before and jailed ex-banker and leading opposition candidate Viktor Babariko has been suggested as a possible compromise candidate. Babariko worked for Belgazprombank for 20 years and is pro-Russian, although his platform highlights Belarusian sovereignty as his primary goal.
Babariko garnered an unprecedented 400,000 signatures-plus in support
of his candidacy for president in the August elections and had been very likely to win against Lukashenko until he was jailed on trumped up financial crimes charges. Putin also reportedly
country, which has a well-developed heavy industrial sector, sends significant exports to Western Europe, in addition to its exports to Russia, two very attractive oil refineries and a world-class IT sector amongst other assets. At the same time, the Kremlin is very keen to keep Belarus as a buffer state to NATO, which has member countries on Belarus’ western border. The Kremlin has long sought to have Russian forward military bases on Belarus’ western border.
The authors of The Insider emphasised the fact that the document shows many edits from Nikita Logovoy. Logovoy is a graduate of the Faculty of International Relations of the Belarusian State University, and in social networks he actively supports opposition events and is photographed with the WRW flag.
www.bne.eu