Failure in “laundering” dictatorship: contract with Lord Bell not prolonged

• 19.08.2009, 9:05

Lukashenka stops cooperation with the British PR company Bell Pottinger Group that must have changed his image in West. But the Belarusian ruler is still dubbed the last dictator of Europe.

EU Observer learnt about the end of the contract from head of the firm Timothy Bell.

“We had a 12 month contract from last August and it has expired," company chairman Timothy Bell told.

EU Observer reports that Bell, who personally handled the Lukashenka account, declined to give further details.

According to the EU Observer, Bell Pottinger Group steered the Belarusian dictator to give interviews to the Financial Times and to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“Mr Bell, a member of the House of Lords, is well-known in the UK for his PR work for former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. He currently advises exiled Russian media baron, Boris Berezovsky, who is a personal friend of Mr Lukashenka,” EU Observer runs.

EU Observer explained a decision of the Belarusian authorities to stop cooperation with the British firm with the fact that “the autocratic president decided he can do a better job himself without relying on advice from Western experts.”

We remind that a probation period the European Union gave to the Belarusian authorities expires in November. Depending on the democracy situation in Belarus, it will be decided in November whether the EU sanctions on the Belarusian regime to be prolonged or lifted. The Belarusian authorities should release political prisoners, stop repressions against opposition, give freedom to the mass media and NGOs, change the Electoral Code to carry out free and democratic elections in the country. None of these conditions has been fulfilled so far.