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ELECTORAL STABILITY AND TRUST INCREASE

Financial standing index’s decrease by 7.7 points (from -15.1 in March to -22.8 in June) didn’t influence electoral rating of A. Lukashenko. It coincided with the March value accurately to one decimal place (Table 1). This precision is nothing else but a chance. However the very fact of stability of electoral rating of the head of state against the background of a significant worsening of economical well-being of Belarusian is a rare phenomenon.

Table 1. Dynamics of electoral rating of president A. Lukashenko and positive answers to the question “Do you think the state of things is developing in our country in the right or in the wrong direction in general?”, %
Variant of answer
09’11
03’13
06’13
09’13
12’13
03’14
06’14
Electoral rating
20.5
33.4
37.3
42.6
34.8
39.8
39.8
In the right direction
17.0
34.5
39.6
39.1
31.9
40.2
42.3
Ability of social being to determine consciousness should not be overestimated. During lean Stalinist five-year plans no one measured ratings of “the father of nations”. Nevertheless there are no doubts that the level of support of golodomor-maker was high.
Table 1 illustrates close connection between electoral rating of A. Lukashenko and positive answers to the question “Do you think the state of things is developing in our country in the right or in the wrong direction in general?”
The fact that values are almost equal in columns means that public opinion is unable to differentiate the personality of the head of state and the direction of country’s development. During the stable economic growth this symbiosis was favorable for the only Belarusian politician, but the crisis of 2011 showed that Belarusians mainly blamed A. Lukashenko for the worsening of their financial standing.
Current situation should be regarded as a case apart. It was provoked by certain international events and thus it will disappear right after the end or the ritualization of those events.
Despite the stability of electoral rating, in June A. Lukashenko’s trust rating increased by 3.7 points in comparison with March. This was another disappointment for the supporters of the theory of “new majority”.
Trust rating is traditionally higher than its “colleague” (Table 2). In June the difference between them amounted to 9.8 points. There is nothing special about it. This is the third similar case over the last year and a half.

Some other trust ratings grew after the growth of president’s trust rating, including government’s trust rating (33.1% in March vs. 36.9% in June), state mass media’s trust rating (34.5% vs. 38.5%) and state sociological services’ one (30.1% vs. 38.5%).
Positive dynamics of state sociological services that don’t even publish results of their surveys shouldn’t surprise you. Respondents react to the word “state”, because today this word is able to generate additional positive emotions.
In articles about A. Lukashenko’s message to Belarusian people and National Assembly we’ve already mentioned high level of respondents’ skepticism about power’s ability to fight corruption. Answers to the question of Table 3 confirm this skepticism.

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The first half of 2013 was marked by active fights against corruption. Nobody is surprised anymore by the news about arrests of high-ranked officials, these news have become a habitual part of news programs. This topic was specially covered in A. Lukashenko’s message. But these anti-corruption actions of power and A. Lukashenko in person didn’t influence the answers of respondents. Today, just like a year ago, the share of optimists, i.e. those who believe A. Lukashenko’s ability to succeed in the fight against corruption, doesn’t even reach 30%.
It is not difficult to represent a socio-demographic portrait of optimists: 32.6% of women and only 20% of men; 47.3% of elder people aged 60 years old and only 18.8% of youth aged 18-29 years old; 67% of respondents with primary education and 22.6% of respondents with higher education.
It’s easy to guess that A. Lukashenko’s supporters prevail among the optimists: 42.6% of his supporters and only 8.4% of his opponents share optimistic views.
Russian propaganda substantially increased Belarusians’ ability to respond to ideological slogans and appeals. But when we leave the ideological sphere and enter the sphere of everyday life, effectiveness of propaganda quickly diminishes. Dynamics (or rather lack of dynamics) of answers, recorded in Table 3, confirms this conclusion.