Economist: Even The Authorities Admit Failure

The "far arc" of the Lukashenka regime collapsed.

The Belarusian authorities are actively looking for partners in the Global South. So, on the night of June 20, Prime Minister Eswatini (former Swaziland) flew to Minsk — this is an African kingdom where martial law has been in force for many years, and almost half of the population lives below the poverty line.

Last year, Aliaksandr Lukashenka flew to Africa several times to hold summits and conclude agreements in Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, and Zimbabwe. Belarusian propaganda claims that the future belongs to African countries, and strategic cooperation with them is very promising. However, how successful is this partnership really?

— In economic terms, there were several attempts to improve relations, — recalls the academic director of BEROC Leu Lvouski in an interview with Salidarnasc.

— We are actively developing relations with Zimbabwe: the Belarusian Women's Union and the Zimbabwean Women's Union have signed some kind of agreement (cooperation announced in 2023 concerns the agro-industrial complex and heavy industry — ed.), and we have a joint space program with Zimbabwe.

Also over the past few months, Uganda has been added to the list of "African partners": they are trying to develop in a completely different direction. Before that, there were contacts with Nicaragua, where they were almost going to dig the Nicaragua Canal as an alternative to the Panama Canal...

So in general, there is an intention to develop relations with the global South, with the countries of Africa. The problem is that these attempts, especially new contacts, are happening with rogue states, including on the African continent.

Rich, developing African countries cooperate primarily with the United States, with China, with Europe, and just like their partners, they do not want to trade with Belarus. But countries like Zimbabwe or Uganda — they want to, but they are too poor, so they cannot buy anything.

Therefore, even the Belarusian authorities recognized the failure of the new long-range arc program: they could not find contacts with countries with any purchasing power, and those who were found could talk, but they couldnot buy anything.