IISEPS News, N 3 (17), 2000 Content: Preface Life in Our Time: Results of a national public opinion poll (Summer – 2000) Open Forum: А. Lebedko, Chairman of United Civic Party Twelve Steps to Victory Bookshelf: Dr. М. Zalessky, Head of a Department of the Economic Research Institute at the Ministry of the Economy Transformations …
Monthly Archive: September 2000
NATIONAL POLL 09’00
1. Title of the study: | “Belarus on the threshold of the XXI century: ways of social transformations”. |
2. Topics of thematic coverage: | political, social and economic factors of transformations of Belarusian society, preparation to presidential elections. |
3. The aim: | to study the most important facilitators and obstacles of development of Belarusian society, to support Belarusian democratic forces for social transformations |
4. Descriptors: | market, economic attitudes, socio-political positions and attitudes, integration, free and democratic election, electoral behavior, opposition, political preferences, political parties, mass media |
5. Comparability: | most important questions were replicated |
6. Geographical area: | Belarus-national |
7. Principal investigator: | IISEPS |
8. Polling organization: | IISEPS, P.O.B. 219, Minsk, 220030, Belarus, e-mail: iiseps@iiseps.org |
9. Fieldwork dates: | 2000, September |
10. Population sampled: | 18+ years old residents of Belarus who are not currently in hospital, jail, military service |
11. Sampling: | clustered random |
12. Sample size: | 1550 respondents |
13. Mode of interviews: | face-to-face interview |
14. Interviewers: | part-time and university students |
15. Control: | selective control of interviewers |
16. Related publications: | more then 10 publications in mass media |
17. Availability of the original data sets: | contact with IISEPS |
18. Source of information: | IISEPS |
POLITICAL PREFERENCES OF THE BELARUSIAN ELITE
1. Integration and “integrators”
According to the results of the survey, the overwhelming majority of opinion leaders does not support the unification of Russia and Belarus. Only 14% of them were ready to vote in favor of it in a hypothetical referendum. However, more than 25% of representatives of government structures support unification, compared to less than 6% respondents from the non-state sector (Table 1).
HOW TO MAKE CHANGES HAPPEN?
The answer to this question largely depends on respondents’ political views. Table 1 shows that the number of respondents who think that the four conditions of the opposition and the OSCE should be observed is on a stable high level and exceeds the number of their opponents fivefold. However, the support of these conditions itself does not imply any actions. This argument is illustrated by the fact that radical actions enjoy little support in society.
INFORMATION SHORTAGE IS THE REASON BEHIND MISTRUST IN POLITICIANS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Many analysts noted that the external side of the election campaign under way is uninteresting and goes largely unnoticed. Despite this and although the rating of the Supreme Council and the National Assembly (and parliamentarism as a whole) is low, 63.4% of respondents showed interest in the candidates in their constituency. However, respondents clearly have little information about candidates and their electoral programs (Table 1).
ELECTIONS-2000 ARE IMMINENT
The results of the nation-wide survey clearly show that the August downward trend in readiness to participate in the elections stopped. The previous trend is back, because people who had hesitated whtether or not to participate in the elections decided that they should cast their votes. The number of supporters of the election boycott went down. Although it is still not possible to forecast how many people will take part in the voting because a large number of them still hesitates, we may assume that the elections will most likely be deemed valid (Table 1-6).