Young protesters in central Minsk waved flags of the EU and orange ones mirroring those used in the pro-Western Orange Revolution in neighboring Ukraine in 2004. However journalists observed only a few uniformed police surrounding the opposition rally, in stark contrast to previous postelection protests in Belarus.
The Belarusian government has recently signed a consultancy contract with British public relations guru Lord Bell, best known for his role in Margaret Thatcher’s election but who also handles PR for self-exiled Russian tycoon, Boris Berezovsky. Bell’s PR firm, Chime Communications, struck the contract at the end of July to “give advice to implement a program to improve the image of Belarus as a country.”
The downtown area of the capital Minsk is clean, “the number of expensive Western automobiles on the streets seems to increase every day, the house fronts are in immaculate condition. And law and order reigns, since the militia is ubiquitous,” a correspondent wrote in a German newspaper.
Russian journalists say the political opposition in Belarus has lost a large part of its luster.
“Opposition leaders well-known outside Belarus – Aleksander Milinkevich and Aleksandr Kozulin – seem to have become exhausted from their endless struggle with the “authoritarian regime”, as they call it,” commented Russia Today TV. “They calmed down. Within a few days before the election nothing had been heard from Mr. Milinkevich, and even his assistant refuses to contact the press. But when the notorious opposition leader met German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month, he asked her nothing else than to adopt a more flexible policy towards Belarus,” said the Moscow-based, Kremlin-backed broadcaster.
While Gazprom is hiking the cost of Belarus gas imports from Russia this is part of the gas company’s transition into a market economy not a Kremlin initiated move against Mr. Lukashenko’s government. Relations are otherwise good and Russian companies are keen to invest in Belarusian companies and have the wherewithal to do it.
