Monthly Archive: July 2015

Dynamics of social indices in the second quarter of 2015 continued to be formed under the influence of oppositely directed economic and political factors. Economic factor influence remains negative in general. Over January-May real disposable household income of citizens decreased by 4.2% comparatively to the same period of previous year, while January-March decrease amounted to only 3%. That is to say that income decrease rate increased. However, growth of consumer price index did not slow down. In January it amounted to 102.4% comparatively to December, in May it amounted 100.7% comparatively to April.

Over 70% of Belarusian citizens are ready to take part in the forthcoming presidential election. These are the results of a survey conducted by the Center of sociological and political studies of BSU, which were made public by the leader of the center D. Rotman on a TV-show on the 28th of June.

Electoral rating of A. Lukashenko, which lost 6.8 points in March, increased again and is close to its December value (Graph 1). Let us remind you that electoral rating is the percentage of votes, which a politician received in answers to an open question (no list) “If presidential elections were held tomorrow, for whom would you vote?”

In IISEPS survey conducted in June 2015 we asked a question on the attitude to the idea of the “Russian World”. 39% of respondents evaluated it positively, 40% were indifferent and only 15% expressed negative attitude.
In fact, there is nothing sensational in these figures. In 2011 survey, when respondents were asked to evaluate the statement of the then Prime Minister V. Putin on the “real and very desired” integration of Russia and Belarus, same 40% of respondents expressed positive attitude to this idea.

The 70th anniversary of the victory over Nazism intensified arguments about the sense and the meaning of that war for Belarus. Tragic events in Ukraine, when Russia uses the paradigm of the Great Patriotic War as an ideological basis for their actions and for the actions of separatists, give a new dimension to these arguments. Admittedly, these arguments in Belarus can mostly be found in social networks only. To what extent do these internet-passions reflect real changes in the notion of that war in general?

In June 2015 survey majority of respondents stated that people in the West live better than people in Belarus (Graph 1).
Also, the majority of respondents (although only relative one this time) expressed their wish for their country to change its policy and approach the EU (Graph 2).

Level of public attention to annual messages of A. Lukashenko remains almost unchanged (Graph 1). Even turbulent events in March 2014 (“Crimeaisours”) didn’t change anything. They didn’t increase the share of those who want to know official evaluations of current events. This indifference might be related to the fact that majority of Belarusians were in captivity of Russian propaganda and thus were not interested in local interpretations of Ukrainian events.

In March 2015 66.6% of Belarusian agreed that Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians are three branches of the same nation. Alternative viewpoint (i.e. different nations) was supported by 27.1% of respondents.
Popularity of this tight unity of the Slavic triangle is not substantive. And this is not a secret. It is not for nothing that in 2003 the then President of Ukraine L. Kuchma published a book called “Ukraine is not Russia”.

Trust rating of Belarusian government follows trust rating of the head of state like a thread follows a needle. And when there is a stabilization of A. Lukashenko’s rating, we should expect minimal changes of government’s trust rating as well. The June survey confirmed this conclusion: March – 37.0%, June – 35.9%.