Monthly Archive: June 2010

RESULTS OF THE NATION OPINION POLL CONDUCTED ON JUNE 2-12, 2010

(1.516 persons interviewed, margin of error does not exceed 0.03)   1. In your opinion, are fundamental changes possible in home and foreign policy of Belarus within the next five years? Variant of answer % Quite possible 30.4 Unlikely 49.0 Impossible 13.5 DA/NA 7.1 2. Would you like such changes to happen? Variant of answer …

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BULLETINS INFOFOCUS № 6

E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 6, 2010 – ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian) Content: Introduction 1. Basic trends of June 2. Chronicle of key events 3. Politics 3.1. “This is the union we have” 3.2. Politicians in the capacity of an economic entity 3.3. In search of another miracle cure 4. Economics 4.1. If …

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BULLETINS “IISEPS NEWS” N 2 (56) JUNE

IISEPS News – ISSN 1822-5535 (Printing), ISSN 1822-5543 (ONLINE), N 2 (56), 2010 Content: Preface MONITORING OF PUBLIC OPINION IN BELARUS: March-2010 Belarus: no changes on the “Youth front”? Distinctive features of Belarusian identity June-2010 Life has become better but no merrier Commercial patriotism The inverted pyramid Pushed for turning up The abyss with stable …

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V. PUTIN AND D. MEDVEDEV – IDOLS OF “EURO-BELARUSIANS”

IISEPS questionnaires have frequently contained a question providing for a comparative analysis of the popularity of the president of Belarus and the popularity of leaders and politicians of other countries in the eyes of Belarusians. The answers to this question reveal not only the feelings of the respondents towards personalities, but also show though indirectly their attitudes towards the countries headed by the leaders, who arouse certain feelings in them. In the June 2010 poll this question was put again (Table 1).

BILINGUAL CULTURAL ASSET

On the 20th of April the head of the state put out his yearly message. Unlike the campaign “Tell the Truth!”, the public awareness in this case proved considerably higher (Table 1) and exceeded 50%. This rate of awareness characterizes the capabilities of the governmental mass media to bring their truth to the Belarusian community. The rate of information awareness is also restricted by the topicality of information and the level of public excitement. For example, three months prior to the third presidential election in 2006 the percentage of those aware of the President’s message was 68.5% of respondents.

THE KYRGYZ GHOST OVER BELARUS

The change of power in Kyrgyzstan in April this year became a major world event of this half of the year. Mass ethnic bashing, which took place in June, suggests that the process, which began on the 7th of April with the ousting of the president K. Bakiev, is far from being over.

RUSSIAN MINIMUM

According to the data of the June 2010 poll of IISEPS, the level of pro-Russian trends among Belarusians in the first summer month of the current year was the lowest over many years (Table 1). Herewith, it is noteworthy that the opinion poll was concluded before the acute gas conflict, in the course of which Russia for the first time since 2004 had sharply reduced gas supplies to Belarus.

SOCIAL “PORTRAIT” OF BELARUSIANS: GENDER ASPECT

The fact that men and women differ not only in appearance or physiology is not a new discovery. Moreover, political consultants “psyched out” their social preferences long ago and make good use of the existing distinctions to reach their objectives.

WHAT IS THE ATTITUDE OF BELARUSIANS TO SEXUAL MINORITIES?

There is no telling the issue of attitude towards sexual minorities be widely presented in the Belarusian public discourse. To tell the truth, if take political discourse, official mass media have made several attempts to present the opponents of the government as advocates of these minorities or members thereof. The oppositionists reacted to it rather sharply classifying such propagandistic moves as a discredit attempt.

DO “THE TRUTH-TELLERS” HAVE LISTENERS?

In June the head of the state held a meeting on the issue of further improvement of the work of security agencies. The meeting was held on the base of Alphagroup under the Committee for State Security of Belarus. Speaking before the participants of the meeting, A. Lukashenko pointed out that in due course when the question was creation of special units within security agencies, it was decided to establish not one or two powerful units but a number of such units.