What will the country of Belarus look like when the dictator, Lukashenko, has been replaced?
Since the Election of August 2020 the country has seen a popular revulsion against what is widely considered to be a rigged election result. The main opposition to President Lukashenko has been imprisoned and his wife forced into self imposed exile where she continues to rally support for him and for new fairer elections.
Immediately after the election there were riots in the capital Minsk and other cities in the country. Since then there have been daily marches of protest by thousands, if not tens of thousands, of the population. All are calling for new elections and the replacement of what is considered to be a corrupt regime. The police and riot police and the courts have become more and more determine to arrest and imprison those it sees as a threat. Journalists, protesters and ordinary people on the streets have been arrested, frequently viciously beaten, and in many cases imprisoned or heavily fined. The determination of those demonstrating seems to indicate that in time – possibly as soon as a few months time – the president will be overthrown and his followers and senior officials replaced.
But with what? What will the new system look like? How will the social systems in place at the moment look like this time next year? How will the new government ensure that those currently in power do not simply move from one government department to new ones?
A few notes on the population of the country.
Total population 9.4 million. 7.4 million are recognised as being urban dwellers. Some two million therefore live in the countryside. The largest city, Minsk, has a population of 1.7 million whilst the 30th largest town, Stowbtsy, has a population of 15,000. Since 1955 the population has grown from 7.7 million to 9.4 million.
Median age in 1955 – 27.7 years
Median age in 2020 – 40.3 years
The year 1955 reflects the enormous death rate during the second world war. The 2020 figures demonstrates how the birth rate and improved heath services contributed to the growth and longevity of the population.
Since 1991 when the population stood at 10.2 million there has been a decline year on year to the current total of 9.4 million. The country is experiencing a nett loss of one person every 76 minutes.
(https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/belarus-population)
Let’s take an assumption about the nature of the breakdown of the population of the country. That a majority of the population are aged between 20 and 60, and that most of them live in urban situations. Potentially these are the people who are currently fermenting the dissatisfaction shown in the country. These are the people who will be most likely to be the ones likely to vote for a new government and president.
At the moment those who are supporting Lukashenko are the older part of the population, those who have lived through the times of Stalin and the Soviet Union times. They are content with the status quo because they have never had the choices which the younger generations in Belarus have experienced. They have never left the country to travel within Europe, the USA and the Far East and experienced the choices available in those countries. In their lifetimes the choices were what the state had given them and not what a capitalist system had allowed to grow and develop. They had become content to ‘do as they were told’ by the state and due to the repression exercised by the state, had been compliant with the regulation of their lives and the voice of the state in their ears. They had accepted what the state run media had told them with few if any queries or dissensions. Life was easy for them, as it appeared that not only were the state paying their pensions, but were supplying the necessities of life at a fixed price.
When Lukashenko goes and takes with him his closest allies, he will also leave behind him many many lower officials, people who ran the state owned companies and services. They have the technical know how. How will the future look in the absence of such people?
It will become essential that the state continues to run the service industries. Electricity, gas, railways, oil and power nuclear stations are the backbone of the needs of the population and need to be run continuously during the period of transition to the new system of government, whatever it will be.
State owned agro economies and companies should be sold off, but not in the rapid way the Soviet Union sold it’s wealth to ‘oligarchs’, a simpler method of sale of these companies needs to be introduced, perhaps the sale of shares in the companies could be engineered by a privately run stock exchange, limiting the sales of share to a small number of shares, so that no one person could immediately take a controlling interest in it. It also opens the door to the purchase of shares by workers in the company who might form a private group of co-workers.
What about the police and courts? The hated riot police, the OMON, would have to be disbanded and the police force organised on a different basis with outside help being brought in during the reorganisation if needed. Non of the judiciary currently being used by the state to goal journalists and political prisoners will be permitted to remain in post. A fresh start is needed.
Media. Remove the television companies from state control. Permit the state to run one newspaper but encourage the creation of new and independent newspapers.
Political parties should be permitted after being registered with the government. Clear rules on their operation and funding should be created and implemented.
Maybe in a couple of years time Belarus will have a new way of life, perhaps the people will be happy, perhaps the prisons will have been emptied of their political prisoners. Perhaps.
