Monthly Archive: April 2015

In the first quarter of 2015 there was a record drop of the share of “Euro-Belarusians”, i.e. the respondents who spoke in favor of integration of Belarus into the EU. At the same time there was a slight increase of the share of supporters of integration with Russia. However this didn’t lead to an identification of interests of Russia and Belarus as equal. Majority of Belarusians don’t want Belarus to join Russian counter-sanctions against the EU countries.

As survey demonstrates, Belarusians’ evaluations of events in Ukraine didn’t change significantly. As before, majority shares Russian point of view on the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in Donbass. At the same time attitude to Ukraine and Ukrainians notably worsened compared to previous years.

Analysis of dynamics of social indices convincingly testifies that Belarusians haven’t lost belief in tomorrow. Despite a catastrophic fall of financial standing index, expectation index hasn’t changed. But for already almost two decades life of ordinary people is moving in a track defined by Belarusian economic model. Thus, belief in future cannot be formed in isolation from belief in the model.

Oscillation amplitude of A. Lukashenko’s electoral rating may reach dozens percentage points, as longstanding IISEPS researches demonstrate it. Having monopolized the power, he made himself “responsible for everything”. That is why mood changes of the authoritarian part of Belarusian society (the so-called majority) directly influence the level of declarative support to the “only politician”.

According to information from the National Bank of Belarus, de-dollarization of economy in the country continues, which is caused by stable exchange rate of the national currency, constant inflation decrease, and current exchange rate policy. It would be prematurely to speak about first successful results of the main financial regulator in de-dollarization for understandable reasons. However, March survey confirms topicality of this policy. 34.1% of Belarusians constantly check how their incomes change expressed in dollars, 43.5% do it from time to time, and only 17.6% – never.

Table 1 data are a visual demonstration of how public opinion’ evaluations of problems, which the country and its citizens face, change. Traditionally, the first position is taken by the “price hike”. This time it has a record high value – 84.1%. Only in 2006, at the peak of evolution of Belarusian model, this problem was mentioned by 80% respondents.

Smooth transformation of Anomaly-2014 into Anomaly-2015 is confirmed by the head of state’s ratings. Despite the December devaluation trust rating remained almost the same (Graph 1). It is by 11.1 points higher than the last value registered before the beginning of “Crimeaisours” (the first column, December 2013).

March survey permits us to draw up an intermediate balance for Anomaly-2014 (growth of positive moods in Belarusian society amid decrease of macro- and microeconomic indices). Main conclusion: the resource of Anomaly-2014 is not exhausted and we cannot exclude that we may witness Anomaly-2015, although it won’t be as striking. Dynamics of social indices (Tables 1-3) gives ground for this hypothesis.