Serious social projects to be implemented

The 2010 state budget has been submitted to Parliament. It does not contain any really big social programmes, but analysts think that as local elections are looming the administration will probably introduce some anyway. It is a common international practice to offer people different social projects just before elections to please the population.

Certain Government projects already exist but could be reinvigorated. The cheap insurance and employment programmes, pension increases and reform of the healthcare system could be implemented with new effort in order to comfort the electors at least with promises. Analysts suggest however that many of the initiatives the Government might take will be reinventions of ones which have already been tried and failed. The cheap insurance programme did not reach its target of signups and the promise to increase pensions to 100 USD per month by the end of 2009 will not materialise either. It is also unlikely that the country will manage to build 100 new hospitals as promised, as so far only a few have been built, and unemployment is increasing.

Most probably the administration will address the problems of pensioners, as there are around 800,000 of these, they form an essential sector of electorate and their demands are quite modest. Most probably the Government will start increasing pensions and promising further increases, thus securing their votes. Analyst Emzar Jgerenaia thinks however that no substantial programme of assistance will follow, and the process will end with the accounting exercise of increasing the pensions, the administration using public money in this way just to win the local elections.