Monthly Archive: April 2002

BULLETINS INFOFOCUS № 4

E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 4, 2002 (only Russian) Content: Introduction Theme of the month: Cancelling of death penalty: step towards Europe or political game? Person of the month Valery Frolov: general of constructive opposition Document of the month: To local elections in columns Public opinion as a threat to authorities Organization of …

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SLUGGISH INTEGRATION CAN TURN INTO AN INCONVERTIBLE PROCESS

The questionnaire indicates, public opinion about the integration of Russia and Belarus is changing. As is seen from Table 1, today the ratio of people who stand for any kind of independence for Belarus and those who want to unite with Russia is 1.9 to 1, while three years ago it was 3 to 1. The number of integration adherents has gone up especially during the last year. The same tendency is shown in Table 2: today the number of people who would vote pro union with Russia is 2.3 times bigger than the number of those who would vote contra, if they had a possibility. Three years ago these parties were approximately equal.

FEARS AND SYMPATHIES OF BELARUSIANS: ARE THE WEST AND DEMOCRACY AS DREADFUL AS THEY APPEAR

The attitude of the dwellers of a country towards emigration is an important indicator of its well-being or trouble, and of the citizens’ evaluation of their prospects in the home country. Talking about Belarus in this respect, we first of all have to point out a high emigration potential of the country. Only half of the respondents answered that they do not want to move anywhere, while more than 41% are ready to go to another country (See Table 1)

OSCE AMG IN BELARUS: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE?

Belarus is in the center of another international scandal: four months after the departure of first head of the OSCE Advisory and Monitoring Group in Belarus, experienced German diplomat H.G. Wieck, Acting AMG Head and French diplomat M. Rivollier was also forced to leave the country. It is highly possible that the remaining “officer-in-charge”,

FEAR OF POVERTY AND BACKPAYS DON’T FORCE BELARUSIANS TO BARRICADES YET

Last year’s presidential elections affected a substantial part of the society of the republic in an ill manner. There was a long pause during which realization of the events as well as creation of a new strategy and giving new answers to old questions were expected to take place.

A PICTURE OF BELARUSIAN POVERTY

Statistics shows that the level of individual income over the country during the last three months of 2001 was about $ 56 a month (in market exchange rate). As is seen from Table 1, almost 60% of population have income lower than this level. Moreover, approximately 32% of our nationals earn less than the living wage ($ 38). Consequently, almost one third of Belarusians stay below the official poverty line. Let’s study the social-demographic characteristics of this group. We will compare it to those who have individual monthly income of more than $ 100, considering them “rich” according to Belarusian standards, though such income level is estimated as beggarly Europe.

VOTERS AND ECONOMY

As was expected, the economic situation in the country after the presidential elections again took a visible turn for the worse. This can be persuasively confirmed by the figures in Table 1. A certain improvement that had been mentioned by our respondents throughout 2001 was displaced again with more pessimistic views. This shows again that we were right assuming that the economic improvement was associated with the realization of A. Lukashenko’s electoral strategy, the core idea of which was forcing enterprises to push up their social expenses by the voting day and to build a mirage of economic progress for the electorate. And naturally, the economy turned to its habitual state after the elections, which was reflected in the results of the opinion poll.

SEARCHING FOR THE LOST ALTERNATIVE

It is hardly a secret that the situation in Belarus is tottering, President’s rating falling down to as low as 30%, the social-economic crisis deepening, the resentment against the present policies surging. Who can be a source of changes, who can Belarusians lay hopes on? That question is asked in the East and in the West and in Belarus itself more and more often. Theoretically, A. Lukashenko himself might trigger changes. In that case, he would have to stop blaming the “remiss officials”, the opposition or the “outer enemies” and change his own outlook radically instead. However, there is little hope of such possibility; A. Lukashenko himself is stating regularly that he does not intend to change the present course.

LACK OF OBJECTIVE INFORMATION UNDERMINES TRUST IN MASS MEDIA

Foreseeable enough, the easily accessible television remains the main source of public, political, social and economic information to most of Belarusians (81.3%). Printed mass media ranks second (62.5%) and is 1.5 times more popular than radio (42.7%). However, person-to-person contacts are not among important sources of information in the era of contemporary mass communications (4.5%) and the Internet has not become easy-to-access so far (2.0%). Belarusians trust the television (28.6%), the press (13.8%) and the radio (8.1%) most.

WHO APPEALS MORE TO THE NEEDY AND WHO IS THE FAVOURITE TO THE RICH?

It has become an established public opinion that the convinced supporters of A. Lukashenko are, as a rule, representatives of the poor social strata. It goes without saying that among his followers there are indeed a lot of people, who make use of the opportunities provided by the authorities in exchange for being loyal to them (corruption, monopoly, business backing and so on) and have no material problems. However, empirical observations prove that the core of A. Lukashenko’s electorate are fairly poor.
As one can see from the poll findings, this point of view is grounded enough. In particular, A. Lukashenko’s convinced supporters earned on average $44.7 per capita in March this year, which is slightly above the official poverty line (March’s minimum living wage totaled $43.7 at the market exchange rate).