"Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus uninterrupted for 31 years, has always been a staunch Soviet-style leader. When he took power, most post-Soviet countries were transitioning to market economies, but just ten years later, he declared that the day would come when he would shake hands with the last private entrepreneur in the country," Michalak reports.
In his view, the Belarusian dictator considers private business a temporary necessary evil - one he still aims to eradicate entirely. While evaluating this mindset may be best left to medical professionals, it does nothing to address the real problem.
Jan Krzysztof Michalak argues that despite government efforts, Belarus still has 237,000 private entrepreneurs, though their numbers have dropped by 6% in the past year. He suggests that since President Lukashenko may never see his vision of an entirely state-controlled economy fulfilled at this rate, the regime is now speeding up the nationalization process.
The full article in Polish is available at polskieradio.pl.
(m p)