Karbalevich: Lukashenko Faces Two Problems

The authorities deliberately pushed the most educated part of the labor force out of Belarus.

On May 24th , Alexander Lukashenko made a working trip to Petrikov district, where officials told him about the "experiment" in Rechitsa district, where foreigners were employed in agriculture. According to the officials, four citizens of Uzbekistan, who were employed for a salary of Br3 thousand, "disciplined" Belarusians.

- Previously, everyone used to curl their fingers and come to work later. Today there is a queue and the work of tractor-mechanizers has stabilized," said Chairman of Gomel Regional Executive Committee Ivan Krupko.

Why do the authorities praise foreign workers, while belittling the Belarusians? "Filin" discussed it with the political observer of "Radio Svaboda" Valery Karbalevich.

- The authorities are facing two problems, which they are trying to solve. The first is a real deficit of labor resources, - says Valery Karbalevich. - There are more vacancies than people willing to work. This becomes a brake on economic development.

The authorities are trying to solve the labor shortage by attracting foreigners. But here they are faced with another problem - negative reaction of the Belarusian society, at that of ordinary people far from politics, to the appearance of a significant number of foreigners here. Moreover, foreigners with a different culture, civilization, religion, values.

The authorities are trying to solve two problems, connected with each other, and neutralize the negativity. Not only propagandists, but also Lukashenko is engaged in the solution. He criticizes Belarusian women for giving birth to few children.

At the same time, the analyst notes, there is an attempt to explain why foreigners are needed in Belarus. For this purpose, Lukashenko even signed a decree, which strictly regulates the attraction of foreigners to work. Now employers must strictly monitor how foreigners work.

- And the second direction is purely propaganda. The same story with Rechitsa, where Uzbeks were invited to show: look how great everything is, it's only good for Belarus, you shouldn't be afraid of inviting foreigners.

- However, I don't think it will be possible to attract a large number of foreigners to work. The problem is rather artificially inflated. Lukashenko's special decree and advertising in Rechitsa, in which he takes part, miss the target. This is not the way to solve the problem.

The authorities deliberately pushed the most educated, dynamic, qualified part of the labor force out of Belarus for political reasons, and now they are trying to find people from other countries who by definition cannot replace Belarusians, because the qualification of those who come is much lower than that of those who left.

Today it is difficult to talk about whether the discontent of the Belarusians connected with their public belittling can deepen, Karbalevich notes.

- What could cause a reaction is indeed the appearance of a large number of foreigners in Belarus. But since we're not talking about the development of the situation, but only about conversations on this topic...

But here it's indicative that the authorities usually respond to any problem with harsh repression. They were partly repressive when those who commented negatively were forced to "repent" on camera.

But here active counter-propaganda has been turned on. It means that the authorities think that repressions alone are not enough, that brute force does not work here, because the discontent has affected not only Lukashenko's opponents, but also supporters, people who are neutral and far from politics.

The authorities considered repressions against these people inexpedient, so they started counter-propaganda. And this point is interesting.

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