Belarus - The Next Regime Changed by "Civil Society"?

Publication date: Saturday 11 March 2006

Belarus's government will be targeted if the west doesn't get the result it wants in this month's elections.

by Jonathan Steele Friday March 10, 2006 The Guardian

"Would you expect a European leader who has presided over a continual increase in real wages for several years, culminating in a 24% rise over the past 12 months, to be voted out of office? What if he has also cut VAT, brought down inflation, halved the number of people in poverty in the past seven years, and avoided social tensions by maintaining the fairest distribution of incomes of any country in the region?

"Of course not, you would say. In Bill Clinton's famous phrase, "it's the economy, stupid". Unless there are overriding issues of political or personal insecurity - incipient civil war, ethnic cleansing, mass arrests, pervasive crime on the streets - most people will vote according to their pocketbooks. And so it is likely to be in Belarus in nine days' time."

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For the full article go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1727954,00.html