Expert: Lukashenko Is "shrinking"

The dictator's recent statements give cause for reflection.

Lukashenko's trips to Shklou district and Kopys were a response to criticism, says economist Sergei Chaly in a recent broadcast on the BRC channel.

- How much we've talked about how he's less and less interested in governing. And now he's gone now with an obvious desire to show how he's still involved in handing out guiding and pointing decisions. And, frankly speaking, it would be better if he didn't do it, because it all looks very bad," the analyst shared his impression of what he saw in the news.

Last statements of Lukashenko give reason to think about the evolution of his ideas concerning the construction of housing. At first, Belarus implemented a program of agro-towns, but it turned out that many of them were empty - "because people have nowhere to work".

Then came the idea of creating investment projects in the regions, under which housing for workers would be built. And here in Kopysi the idea of building rental housing where it is necessary not for people, but for the management of enterprises was voiced.

or to limit the construction of housing in Minsk and regional centers, reducing the choice of people to move to urban settlements like Kopysi.

- Strictly speaking, it sounds logical, if we don't think about the fact that it is a circular argument. Businesses should be where the people are, and the people should be where the businesses are. It remains to understand where to start," Chaly ironizes.

The economist calls the attempt to make Kopys a role model for the whole country an anecdote, since both the woodworking enterprise and the cheese factory had to bring workers. And for cheese production, milk was imported from elsewhere. There is no economic sense in this Potemkin project, the analyst is convinced.

Moreover, the same cheese factory, owned by the court businessman Sergei Tetrin, raises questions from Lukashenko himself.

The ruler's decrees and orders are becoming more and more primitive and formulaic, Chaly notes. "Bread should be produced as much as necessary. And as much as it is not necessary - it is not necessary to release."

- You went to show how you know everything. Instead, you demonstrate "everything that should be - should be, and what should not be - should not be" and "you know better than me".

In Chaly's opinion, today we are witnessing a very interesting process of Lukashenko's claims shrinking - from large-scale and shamefully ended modernization of the Belarusian industry to "make me at least Shklovsky district or at least Kopys".

- The whole country should work hard and do it. And even there it does not work, where you know every meter, where your best and closest friends work as investors. Even there it doesn't work the way it should. The utilization is at 50%, people and raw materials have to be transported.

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