Last week, over 30 thousand small merchants took part in a one-day protest against a bizarre decree of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka prohibiting private entrepreneurs from employing more than three people who also need to be related to their employer (!).The event did not receive much coverage in the Western media, but I found an interesting article about it (in Polish) by Andrzej Poczobut, Grodno-based political activist and journalist.
The decree, first announced in December 2006, is supposed to become binding as of January 2008 and has already sparked numerous protests over the past few months. In this latest one, bazaars in 32 Belarusian cities participated in a „strike” in which local marketplaces froze their regular operations. Despite threats and investigations by security forces, protesting merchants vow to defend their right to pursue their business freely. The leaders of the protests declare that unless the government reverses the controversial decree, they will start a new wave of strikes and stop paying taxes.
Small entrepreneurs in Belarus are for the most part bazaar traders. The new law would require them to officially register a company, pay much higher taxes, and comply with complex business and accounting procedures meant for larger firms. For most small entrepreneurs such requirements are impossible to meet. It is no wonder then that out of over 200 thousand such small businessmen in Belarus only 169 so far have decided to register a firm. For the rest, the implementation of the new law as of January 1 may mean a forced shutdown and loss of livelihood.
Why is the government engaged in this blatant crackdown on small entrepreneurs? Well, they constitute probably the last remaining independent large social group in Belarus and the authoritarian regime doesn’t like that. Their leaders have been pursued and jailed by the authorities as much as leaders of the opposition parties. Afraid of what he cannot control, President Lukashenka announced in 2006 that he would gladly “shake the hand of the last private entrepreneur in Belarus” – in a gesture of farewell. After all, by protesting against governmental policies disastrous to private business and economic freedom, small entrepreneurs also bring unwanted attention to the lack of other liberties in the Belarusian society under Lukashenka’s rule.
Published Date: October 12, 2007