June survey testifies that respondents’ support of Eastern vector slightly decreased over the last quarter. Nevertheless its level is still quite high (Table 1).
The share of “Belo-Russians” in the answer to the question of Table 1 decreased slightly but significantly (about 5 points). The share of Euro-Integration supporters hasn’t changed.
The answers to the “one-sided” question on integration with Russia confirmed the trend discovered in Table 1 (Table 2).
Both the decrease of the share supporters of integration with Russia and the increase of the share of its opponents attract our attention in Table 2.
As for Euro-Integration, despite a slight increase of the share of “Euro-Belarusians” in the answers to the “two-sided” question, the answers to the “one-sided” question show a noticeable increase of the share of opponents of Euro-Integration (Table 3).
If you want to make an additional evaluation of dynamics, it makes sense to have a closer look at the answers to the question on preferred relations with Russia (Table 4). These variants of relations cover different degrees of integration, as the term “integration with the RF”, that is used in the questions of Tables 1 and 2, may have various connotations for the respondents.
As you can see over a long time interval there was no special increase in pro-Russian moods in June 2014. On the one hand, general number of integration supporters (first two variants) makes up more than a half of respondents (53.3%). But it was the same in previous surveys. As a rule, this sum was even significantly higher, than in June 2014.
On the other hand, the share of supporters of full integration into a single country is record low. Probably, fear caused by the events in Ukraine, has more than one dimension. Respondents may even approve Russian policy in Ukraine, but still projection of Crimea and Donbass on their own country doesn’t enthuse them.
About a half of respondents answered in favor of a more or less close integration with Russia (Table 4). This fact explains why practical realization of this integration under the form of the Eurasian Economic Union has practically the same level of support. Agreement about creation of this union was signed by A. Lukashenko, N. Nazarbaev and V. Putin in May in Astana (Table 5).
The level of the EEU support is lower than the share of “Belo-Russians” in the answers to the “two-sided” question of Table 1. This is probably explained by the fact that the first question is on a geopolitical choice, while the latter one is on attitude to a practical project, which has its pros and cons. The cons, by the way, are vivdly discussed by Belarusian power. A. Lukashenko harshly criticized Russia’s position during the talks about the EEU even shortly before signing the agreement. The decrease of project’s support in September 2013 may be explained by this criticism. Return of the support to the two-year-ago level in June 2014 may be explained by strengthening of pro-Russian moods against the background of Ukrainian events.
Countries, even the most authoritarian ones, cannot be reduced to their leaders. Nevertheless, the game, which was proposed to respondents by sociologists, may be a subject of interest. They had do decide who would be a better president for a union of Russia and Belarus. These questions are not destined to find out how people would vote on a very hypothetical referendum like this, but to measure and compare authority of two leaders (Table 6).
Table 6. Dynamics of answering the question: “If a post of a President of Belarus and Russia was established, for whom would you vote on elections to this post?”, %
|
Variant of answer
|
11’99
|
08’01
|
09’02
|
09’03
|
11’04
|
12’05
|
03’06
|
06’08
|
06’10
|
06’14
|
|
A. Lukashenko
|
31.6
|
19.5
|
15.0
|
21.1
|
29.8
|
38.8
|
44.4
|
27.7
|
28.6
|
33.6
|
|
V. Putin
|
13.2
|
41.4
|
53.9
|
45.2
|
24.3
|
19.8
|
22.0
|
21.6
|
16.2
|
25.3
|
|
D. Medvedev
|
–
|
–
|
–
|
–
|
–
|
–
|
–
|
10.9
|
9.8
|
–
|
|
Other politician
|
17.9
|
8.8
|
5.1
|
6.9
|
2.0
|
3.5
|
5.1
|
4.5
|
4.2
|
2.0
|
|
NA/DA/I wouldn’t vote
|
37.3
|
30.3
|
26.0
|
26.8
|
43.9
|
37.9
|
28.5
|
35.3
|
41.2
|
39.1
|
As you can see V. Putin’s rating increased not only in comparison with 2008 and 2010, when in the eyes of Belarusian public opinion he competed with the other Russian top figure, but also in comparison with, say, 2005-2006. Probably, this increase was influenced by decisive Russian actions in Ukraine, as these actions are approved by many Belarusians. However, this approval didn’t cause an equivalent growth of Russian President’s popularity. His rating in comparison with, say, 2006 increased by few percentage points and didn’t even get close to his level of popularity in Belarus in the beginning of aughties. It should also be noted that A. Lukashenko significantly increased his rating in comparison with the previous years.
In fine, it should be said that Ukrainian events didn’t substantially change geopolitical priorities of Belarusians. Despite the fact that majority of respondents supported Russian policy in Ukraine, spring increase of pro-Russian moods changed to a certain decrease in the beginning of summer. At the same time the share of respondents who support merging of Belarus and Russia into a single state turned out to be record low. As it is known, V. Putin’s rating in Russia is beyond the clouds right now. Even though in Belarus his rating slightly increased, it is still significantly lower than A. Lukashenko’s rating.