POWER AND ALTERNATIVE IN THE RATINGS MIRROR

In the opinion poll of June 2013 a set of questions about the popularity of politicians and social and political organizations was asked. In particular, respondents were asked two questions concerning their desired presidential contenders: an open-end one, when a respondent was supposed to write in the last name of the preferred candidate on his/her own, and a close-end one, in which the respondent was offered to choose a candidate from a fixed list of politicians (Table 1).

* The close-end question about a desired presidential contender, as well as the questions of Tables 3-4, was included into the poll at the request of the Civil Campaign “Nash Dom”
It follows clearly from the data of Table 1 that a personal political alternative is quite obvious. In the poll only 15.3% of respondents stated that they trusted opposition parties. However, when the matter concerns individuals, there is more support in this case: answering the open-end question approximately every fourth respondent named a certain alternative to the incumbent president, and answering the close-end one – almost every second.
It also follows from these data that an alternative does not have a single face, even V. Neklyaev who ranks second in the rating gathers only an insignificant part of the respondents ready to vote for an alternative to A. Lukashenko.
One of the quite interesting questions is why the ratings of the politicians differ so appreciably in the answers to the open-end and close-end questions about the desired contestants for the presidency. Generally speaking, the answer is as follows: people differ greatly in their interest in politics. A political activist understands all the twists and turns of various political trends, knows the names of all the party leaders by heart. A person who does not know anything about politics has only the roughest idea about it – there is power, there is “no-power”, the latter is embodied just in one or two names. It is not difficult to remember them, however many respondents do not want to bother even to do that. Let us note that the number of respondents who did not answer the close-end question is three times less than the open-end question – approximately every fourth respondent did not put him/herself to the bother of remembering. Even A. Lukashenko known to every Belarusian gained slightly in the rating when respondents transferred from the open-end to the close-end question.
There is also another mechanism for the rating growth in going from one question to another – the recognition mechanism. Having seen the name of a politician in the close-end question, the respondent may remember something positive about him/her and mark him/her as a desired candidate. On average, the lower is a candidate’s open-end rating the larger is the gap between his/her open-end and close-end ratings. Recognition plays an almost crucial role here.
Finally, the list of the candidates presented in the questionnaire legitimizes its participants as possible contestants in the eyes of respondents: a person can lean to a politician, but not consider him/her as a presidential contender before seeing him/her in the suggested list.
The data of Table 2 testify to the difference in the political opinions of the alternative: opponents of the president and supporters of the opposition are not necessarily supporters of certain opposition candidates.
Table 2. The close-end rating in the groups of supporters and opponents of the president and the opposition, %

As it can be seen, A. Lukasehnko absolutely (although not 100%) dominates in the group of respondents trusting him; every second respondent among the ones not trusting the opposition is ready to vote for him. What is interesting, in the group of respondents trusting the opposition the incumbent president is also the most popular politician. A question emerges here: what exactly is the declared trust in the opposition expressed in, and in what opposition exactly?
It is natural that opposition politicians enjoy more popularity in “their” groups (the respondents not trusting A. Lukashenko and trusting the opposition). However, this is not dominating: the maximum rating of the most popular opposition candidate among “his” respondents is 17%.
As it has been mentioned before, egress from the opposition electoral “ghetto” is a noble and important task for politicians; but, perhaps, one should win at least the votes of the “ghetto” to start with.
Nevertheless, the ratings among “one’s own” respondents demonstrate even more clearly than the ratings for the whole of the sample the presence of “the second league” – a group of three: V. Neklyaev-A. Sannikov-A. >Milivkevich that appreciably outstrips the rest of the opposition colleagues.
Dependence between a politician’s popularity and popularity of the organization headed by him/her possesses a rather complicated nature (Table 3).

The campaign “Tell the Truth” demonstrated a considerable, more than fivefold growth in the open-end rating during the space of the quarter. It is so great that more likely it represents a certain fluctuation, and is not a sign of a blistering growth in the organization’s popularity. At the same time, the leap may mean the beginning of a steady increase in the organization’s rating. The rest of the organizations have maintained approximately the same positions from March to June.
It should be noted that A. Lukashenko’s popularity is not projected on the ruling organizations: he is an indisputable leader as far as popularity is concerned, they are not. Several thousand strong “Belaya Rus” rounds up the top five, the CPB finds itself in the middle of the list, and the BRUY is at the end. As it has been repeatedly noted by political scientists, under the conditions of the Belarusian personalistic regime such organizations are not the buttress of the supreme authority bearer – he is their buttress.
In this respect the situation with the opposition leaders and organizations is more logical. V. Neklyaev is the most popular alternative politician, as well as his organization. A. Milinkevich’s high position in the rating is in line with the high rating of the movement “For Freedom” led by him. Only A. Sannikov falls out of this consistent pattern: if he himself is part of the group of the country’s most popular politicians, the same cannot be said about the campaign headed by him.
A comparison of the dynamics of the organizations’ open-end and close-end ratings lets us assume that the March open-end rating of “Tell the Truth” was more likely an incidental deviation than its rather high value in the June opinion poll (Table 4). Changes in the close-end ratings of the organizations proved to be slight within the space of the quarter. An increase in the popularity of “Tell the Truth” and a decrease in the popular appeal of the CCP BPF should be mentioned among the most appreciable ones.
Table 4. Dynamics of answering the question: “If tomorrow parliamentary elections took place, candidates of which political party or movement would you vote for?”, % (more than one answer is possible)

* The close-end rating from Table 1
A comparison of the leaders’ close-end ratings and the ratings of the organizations headed by them refutes the wide-spread belief that political life in the country is built according to the formula from V. Mayakovsky’s poem “We say – party, imply – X (its leader)”. However, as we see, the popularity of the organizations is actually higher than the popularity of their leaders. Perhaps, a society’s demand is manifested in this correlation. It is waiting not so much for “hardcore leaders”, but for meaningful reform programs and for teams able to realize them.