Monthly Archive: August 2001

NATIONAL POLL 08’01

1. Title of the study: Belarus: prospects in the XXI century”.
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: 2001, August
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: 1518 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

 

CAMPAIGNING BASED ONLY ON NEGATIVE INFORMATION HAS HAD NO EFFECT DESIRED

It is no secret that until recently election campaigning of democratic candidates has been based mainly on revealing information about “shady” affairs of the present authorities – its alleged involvement in elimination of prominent politicians and journalists, illegal arms trade, persecution of political opponents for political reasons, etc. To put it differently, voters offered information about moral image of those who govern the country and draw a conclusion: do they have the right to continue leading the country.

CHANGES OUTLINED VON THE EASTERN FRONT

It is widely known that efficiently using Russia’s card, in part, A. Lukashenko managed to become the president seven years ago. Later on more than once and rather successfully he has taken use of this card to discredit his political opponents and to solve some other problems. However, at the moment, A. Lukashenko seems to lose the given powerful trump card.

PROGNOSIS OF VOTING BY UNDETERMINED VOTERS (OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO FOR DEMOCRATIC FORCES)

One of the main questions today – how would voters, who have not determined their mind yet, act at polling stations. At the moment they amount to 25% (see Table 1). As we see from Table 2, about 17.2% of uncertain voters – some 4.3% of all respondents – are positive (very positive or rather positive) towards V. Goncharik. Almost the same number of voters – 17.5% among those undetermined or 4.3% of all respondents – are positive towards A. Lukashenko. Negative attitude towards A. Lukashenko (including very negative and rather negative) was expressed by 54.8% or 13.6% of the electorate.

BELARUSIAN ELECTORATE BEFORE THE ELECTION: NAVIGATION FOR A SINGLE CANDIDATE FROM THE WIDE CIVIC COALITION

As follows from the below given data (see Tables 1-6), A. Luakshenko’s rating, as compared to the previous opinion poll in June, has gone up noticeably, though the number of his convinced opponents has not dropped, but steadily levels at one third of electorate. Today A. Lukashenko’s rating – open or closed question about voting (44.4% and 47.4%, respectively), about trust (43.8%), about sympathies (52.2%) – does not drop below 43%.

POPULATION’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

As the survey data shows, 88.4% of voters are going to take part in the upcoming presidential election (see Table 1). In June the figure was 86.8%. That means interest in the election is still going up.