Long way down

Despite these and other indications declining living standards, Lukashenka remains popular with a significant minority of the population. And as late as two weeks before the first round of the elections, the anti-Lukashenka forces had only begun to articulate a program of economic reform to the wider population, thanks both to the efforts of the authorities and the disorganized nature of the opposition itself.
In mid-August Hancharik joined forces with another leading presidential candidate, Domash, with the understanding that the latter would serve as Prime Minister should the ticket prevail. The combined campaign also agreed to an economic platform worked out in part by Daneyko and Romanchuk which calls for a liquidation of most of the overbearing administrative controls that characterize the current system, as well as a broad privatization program. The experts also suggest deep tax reform (to leave just 6 taxes out of 39), reduce the number of licensed activities by 10 times (to 10 - 15) and to launch pension reform Chilean style. The most important6 part of it is to ensure sanctity of private property and open the country to free flows of money, goods, services and labor. 
Most analysts say a well-implemented reform program, coupled with official aid and FDI, could quickly produce strong results.
“When change begins, it will happen much faster than in Russia or Ukraine ,” says Dagenhart. “The country is full of hard-working, patient people.”
But the initial stages of liberalization would likely be very painful, especially given the absence of a private sector able to mop up labor forced from restructured or liquidated state enterprises.
“If the opposition wins we have no illusions,” says Gennady Bykov, Chairman of the Belarusian Free Trade Union. “We hope that, if there is privatization, it will be like the in the west, not like in Russia .”
But the businessman stuck under the militia “roof” says he has no illusions that Lukashenka can be defeated, either by ballot or popular uprising. “If the power changes, people will be put in jail… and that’s why the power won’t change.”
And while some believe a change is inevitable, given the rapid deterioration of the enterprise sector, even many opposition figures say the system could continue for quite some time.
“There has been talk about this economic ‘crisis’ for seven years,” says Pelipas. “For one country it may be a crisis. But for another it may be a normal situation. And if the economic situation gets much worse than it is today, the majority of the population has plots of land to go cultivate, or relatives in the villages.”
Most painful of all is the fact that this devastation will be largely ignored by the outside world, like the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster that continues to poison the country’s southeast corner.
“It has attracted no attention whatsoever, and it will be many, many years before investors look at it,” says Augsto Lopez-Claros, senior international economist at Lehman Brothers in London . “To the extent that it gets a little better, it will have a marginal effect on the region. And if it goes into a tailspin, it will have only a marginal effect as well.”