Monthly Archive: October 2013

BULLETINS INFOFOCUS № 10

E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 10, 2013 – ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian) Content: Introduction 1. Basic trends of October 2. Chronicle of key events 3. Politics 3.1. “Let’s remove requisitioning – and everything’s gonna be fine” 3.2. Political consequences of the “new economic policy” 4. Economics 4.1. Everyone cannot live at the expense …

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CONFIDENCE IN RUBLE AS A DERIVATION FROM CONFIDENCE IN A. LUKASHENKO

“Which currency do you have? – they say. – Don’t be afraid, – I answer, – not dollars”. The sense of fears of V. Vysotski’s lyrical hero of is not so clear for young Belarusians today. To make ends meet today most people have to follow the head of the state’s example, that is to take decisions “as life goes by”, while life taught to follow attentively the exchange rate of Belarusian ruble to US dollar, otherwise you could get into a big trouble. The last lesson our native state gave to its citizens in 2011, when national currency was devaluated by the factor of three, so that ruble savings of its electors were decreased in the same proportion.

IT’S DIFFICULT TO LIVE, BUT STILL POSSIBLE TO PUT UP WITH IT

The struggle between the growth of population’s income and prices hike for the right to form the national opinion is going on with varying success in 2013. The current results of this struggle are recorded in the social indices (Tables 1-3). Their changes during the last year and a half reminds of light ripples on a pond. In June they had simultaneously increased relatively to March, and in September they have decreased in the same simultaneous way.

A. LUKASHENKO IS NOT AN OBSTACLE FOR CARDINAL CHANGES

Who succeeds today in the Belarusian “state for the people”? According to the people, first of all those who are in power, and, therefore, don’t belong to the people (Table 1). Among the Belarusians who didn’t manage to get in power succeed well-connected people, and there is a huge gap between them and businesslike and talented people. But connections are a mean that helps representatives of people to resolve their private issues with those who are in power, i.е. with government officials.

DANGEROUSLY EXPLOSIVE STABILITY

Against the background of social indices’ decrease the electoral rating of A. Lukashenko raised by 5.3 points in a quarter (Table 1), which is remarkably higher than the statistical error (3%). As for the trust rating, though formally it hadn’t changed a lot, but the number of those who don’t trust the president decreased perceptibly (Table 2), which led to a record (during the last three years) share of respondents, who found it difficult to answer. This is a sure sign of the growth of the feeling of uncertainty in society.

FEMALE FACE OF CHERNOBYL FEARS

On the 17th of August in Ostrovets there was held a public Belarusian-Lithuanian discussion of the report on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the Belarusian nuclear power plant under construction. The official point of view on the safety problem during the discussion was represented by the Deputy Minister of Energy of Belarus M. Mikhadyuk. We are not going to retell it, but, naturally, it was reduced to unconditional priority of safety and reliability of the future nuclear station and commitment of Belarus to observance of IAEA norms and standards.

NECESSARY, BUT INSUFFICIENT CONDITION

Current level of negative values of social indices doesn’t lead to growth of oppositional moods in the Belarusian society (Table 1). For such growth extraordinary events, accompanied not by a decrease, but by a collapse of social indices, are required, as it was observed in June-September, 2011: 28.3% is an absolute record. In two years the share of Belarusians who answer affirmatively the question “Do you consider yourself in opposition to the current regime?” was cut by half.

WANDERLUST

The latest IISEPS survey showed that emigration intentions of the population declined slightly in comparison with the 2011 crisis. The share of those who think of departure from Belarus for permanent residence decreased by five percentage points, and this change happened mainly due to the German direction (Table 1).

GEOPOLITICAL PREFERENCES: WHAT HAS CHANGED IN 10 YEARS?

During the quarter that has elapsed since the last IISEPS survey, geopolitical preferences of Belarusians did not change significantly.
However, a slight decrease in respondents’ disposition to integration with Russia should be noted. Nevertheless some quite noticeable changes occurred over a longer period of time (see Tables 1-2).

Alexander Klaskovsky

06 Oct
The main enemy of Lukashenko cuts him without a knife