Lukashenks starts purges among officials ahead of 2015

The arrest of top officials of the Homel regional executive committee is how the dictator prepares for another “election”.

Homel resident Andrei Stryzhak, a coordinator of the youth network of the Electronics Trade Union, said it in an interview with charter97.org.

– The Investigation Committee said this morning that two deputy heads of the Homel regional executive committee were detained. What do Homel residents say about the incident?

– I haven't heard discussions in the street or on public transport so far, but people speak about it on social networking sites.

– The officials were arrested “on suspicion of abuse of power”. What does it charge really mean and why were they actually arrested, in your opinion?

– I cannot say now whether they were from the old team of Viktar Pilipets, the chairman of the Homel city executive committee, or they were new officials. But I see the local officials are in panic. I don't remember similar arrests in other regions literally a couple of days after the imprisonment of Pilipets.

– Lukashenka has begun to speak about the so called active struggle against corruption. Do you think the arrests were a part of the anti-corrpution campaign or it there is another reason?

– There are several opinions. Of course, these are more like speculations, but if we draw a parallel with, for example, the events in Ukraine, we can recall a question to Lukashenka. He was asked whose orders the head of a region, who supported the annexation of Crimea, would implement. Lukashenka answered he would fulfill “my orders”, not the orders of the self-declared “people's republic”. We can try to think in this context, to think whether it is the beginning of purges and checking the loyalty of officials in the context of separatism or other similar movements. But it looks more like a conspiracy theory: maybe it's true, maybe not. In my view, this is preparations for 2015 and the planned purges among officials to remind them they don't have their posts forever.

– In this case, will the “anti-corruption struggle” have really positive results?

– I take it philosophically. It is like bees against honey. On the one hand, they are fighting against corruption, but on the other hand, they don't create any transparent mechanisms to curb it. Corruption cannot be destroyed by these methods. You can replace officials thousands of times, but nothing will change if you don't change the system on appointing people to executive positions. It will be a facade of fight against corruption.