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DOES A MYTHICAL CANDIDATE HAVE A CHANCE?

The September historic minimum of A. Lukashenko’s electoral rating did not remain unnoticed by its owner: on October 7 in the course of a press conference for the mass media of Russian regions head of the Belarusian state expounded his view on the dynamics of his own rating. He began with a description of a point of view rather popular among average citizens concerning the reliability of the results of public opinion polls: “As a journalist you know what an opinion survey is. I will not go into details. Do you want my rating to be 90% today? It will be tomorrow. (Laughter in the audience) If you want it to be 15 – it will be tomorrow, too. You know it, don’t you?” In the opinion of A. Lukashenko, in Belarus one can slant in favor of customers not only the results of public opinion polls, but also the official results of the Central Election Committee: “Indeed Belarusian president was officially supported by 79.9% and in reality (!) by more than 80% of electors”. Who defines the difference between “indeed” and “in reality” is another question, however the difference has become the standard of electoral practices in the country. Let us remind the readers that for the first time A. Lukashenko confessed to the fact of electoral fraud at the presidential elections in the interview with the first deputy director general of the ITAR-TASS News agency M. Gusman already in August, 2009.

However, the matter eventually is not in the absolute value of the falling rating, but in the meaning behind the fall. In the opinion of A. Lukashenko, almost three-fold devaluation of the national currency and three-digit (at an annual rate) inflation are not the reason for a decrease in the level of his electoral support. Let us cite an appropriate quotation: “Do you know how Belarusians differ from other nations? They are an educated nation. And if a problem appears here, it does not mean they are going to fall from 70 or 80 percent to 20 and say: “Lukashenko is bad”. This is complete nonsense. Please, forgive my lack of modesty, forgive me for God’s sake, but Belarusians should hold on to Lukashenko even in the most critical situation as a drowning man catches at a straw, because Lukashenko has never betrayed and will not betray them. Never!”

Within the bounds of the given logic, Russians do not belong to educated nations. In 2011 it took only the real income of the population to slow down its progressive growth, as the ratings of the president, the prime minister and the “party of power” went down. At that it did not occur to any of the officials to question them.

It is appropriate here to cite A. Lukashenko once again: “To what extent is the Belarusian way effective? A criterion of the truth is practice. In an economy salaries and income of the population are an integrated indicator. I am emphasizing: of the population, not of a handful of people – super-rich, billionaires and so on”. It is impossible to argue with that. So far as the integrated economic indicator decreased two-fold in dollar terms during the first half of 2011, it would be surprising if the rating would not have rushed after it. Let us mention that Belarusians got used to estimate their income in dollars with the help of A. Lukashenko.

The “at-your-service” principle which, according to the head of state, prevails in Belarusian sociology demanded a further decrease in the rating. However, something went wrong. Perhaps, somebody had not understood someone, or someone had not paid enough to somebody, but the December rating turned out to be 4.4 points higher than the September rating (Table 1). Taking into account positive dynamics of social indices, exactly such an outcome should have been expected.

Table 1. Dynamics of A. Lukashenko’s electoral rating, %

Variant of answer

12’10

03’11

06’11

09’11

12’11

A. Lukashenko’s rating

53.0

42.9

29.3

20.5

24.9

Dynamics of answering the question: “Has, in your opinion, A. Lukashenko’s rating (i.e. readiness of the population to vote for him at the next elections) increased or decreased during the time passed after the presidential elections?” also reflects the peculiarity of A. Lukashenko’s assessments of changes that occurred on the electoral field in 2011. In September when electoral support reached its historic minimum, 73% of respondents agreed that A. Lukashenko’s rating had gone down, while only 4.3% adhered to the opposite point of view. In three months the number of the former sank to 62.1%, and the number of the latter virtually did not change. At the same time the number of those who supposed that the rating had remained the same grew from 18.6% to 26.4%.

Following the electoral rating, the trust rating added 6.7 points, too (Table 2). Its mirror reflection (the distrust rating) fell accordingly from 62% to 54.5%, having thus moved away from the crucial borderline which the “only politician” of the country had defined for himself (“…if only I were sure and knew that today Belarusians 80% and more hate Lukashenko, I would collect all these belongings, put them on the table and say: “Thank you, brothers-the-Belarusians. I will be able to earn my bread, don’t worry”).

Table 2. Dynamics of the trust ratings of the president, the government, the state and non-state mass media and opposition political parties, %

Subject of politics Variant of answer

12’10

03’11

06’11

09’11

12’11

President Trust

55.0

47.9

33.6

24.5

31.2

Do not trust

34.1

42.0

53.8

62.0

54.5

Government Trust

51.6

43.3

33.6

17.1

24.3

Do not trust

36.1

44.7

54.8

68.2

52.7

State mass media Trust

52.9

43.4

39.2

25.7

28.6

Do not trust

38.4

48.5

52.6

62.2

58.7

Non-state mass media Trust

46.3*

45.5

46.2

32.8

32.3

Do not trust

41.1

42.2

39.5

52.2

52.7

Opposition political parties Trust

16.3

20.1

12.3

13.4

Do not trust

62.8

53.3

59.9

61.6

* In December, 2010 “Non-state mass media” were replaced by “Independent mass media” in the questionnaire

The government’s trust rating followed A. Lukashenko’s trust rating as a thread follows a needle. We have already had to draw the readers’ attention to the dependence of ratings of the government institutions in Belarus more than once. The army is left out of the general rule, but the state mass media are not. However modestly, but their trust rating grew by 2.9 points in December. It is clear that the non-state mass media and opposition political parties could not count on a growth in their ratings under the established circumstances.

Answers to the classical question: “Whose fault is it?” find themselves in the tideway of the new trend (Table 3). The list of the guilty is still headed by the president, but the gap between him and the government has decreased two times (from 19.9 to 9.1 points). At that it looks as if the head of state shifted his guilt onto the government and the parliament. The former should not be surprising. It is enough to remember the public floggings the government has been subject to for the last months. However, it is not so easy to understand the reason for an almost two-fold growth of the guilt of the parliament: Belarusian legislators, in full conformity with the working Constitution, are not able to exert any influence upon the situation in the country. All other subjects and quasi-subjects, with the exception of A. Lukashenko’s direct political rivals (the opposition), preserved their positions.

Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question: “Who is guilty of the current crisis in Belarus?”, % (more than one answer is possible)

Variant of answer

09’11

12’11

President is guilty

61.2

53.7

Government is guilty

41.3

44.6

Parliament is guilty

11.9

19.5

The USA is guilty

16.3

13.8

Russia is guilty

7.3

12.6

Europe is guilty

12.0

11.9

People are guilty

10.0

10.9

Opposition is guilty

5.0

8.8

DA

13.4

16.1

Changes in the answers which have occurred for the last three months should altogether be recognized as insignificant. However, if we compare the present assessments of A. Lukashenko’s activity with the assessments of six years’ prescription (Table 4), the fact of the legitimacy crisis will become especially obvious. From the public opinion point of view, only opposition politicians had a negative balance out of the activity of the head of state in 2005. All the rest gained from it, although to a different extent (the closer to the authorities, the lager the wining, of course). Today none of the social groups (including pensioners) unconnected directly with the authorities has profited from the ebullient activity of the head of state. The list of beneficiaries is as before headed by employees of the presidential top-down command structure.

Table 4. Dynamics of answering the question: “During the years of A. Lukashenko’s governing the country the state of some people in Belarus has improved, of others, on the contrary, has become worse, and of the third – has not changed. How has the state of the below listed social groups changed in the country?”, %

Social groups

Has improved

Has not changed

Has become worse

05’05

12’11

05’05

12’11

05’05

12’11

Such people as you are

28.8

13.1

41.4

24.9

25.9

58.0

Entrepreneurs

34.6

15.6

20.1

21.9

28.9

49.3

Directors of state enterprises and collective farms

54.1

29.1

22.3

29.1

9.2

25.9

The military

51.5

28.2

25.8

31.9

5.4

24.0

The top-down presidential command structure

72.1

45.4

12.2

25.6

1.8

12.4

The youth

33.4

14.4

30.9

21.6

26.0

55.9

Employees of the law-enforcement agencies

65.0

34.0

20.5

30.0

3.0

22.7

Pensioners

48.7

22.5

24.7

19.0

20.3

52.2

Deputies of the National assembly

59.6

34.2

18.7

30.6

2.0

12.0

Journalists

24.1

12.7

30.3

34.4

17.7

25.4

Opposition politicians

22.0

11.2

22.0

24.3

28.4

36.4

The data of Table 5 can be regarded as an illustration to A. Lukashenko’s suggestion to hold on to him “even in the most critical situation as a drowning man catches at a straw”. Even in the before-the-crisis year of 2010 only 28.7% of Belarusians supposed that if the unchallenged president would have stood down from his post, life would have become worse. Last December the share of respondents regarding A. Lukashenko as a straw dropped to 21.5%. As experts in the sphere of social psychology aver, it is characteristic of a human being to have a good reputation by himself, and the “only politician” of Belarus is not an exception in this sense.

Table 5. Dynamics of answering the question: “Some people think that after A. Lukashenko’s standing down from presidency life in Belarus will improve, others, on the contrary, think it will become worse. What do you think ?”, %

Variant of answer

10’10

09’11

12’11

Life will improve

25.3

35.2

31.7

Life will remain the same

28.6

26.9

29.9

Life will become worse

28.7

23.8

21.5

DA/NA

17.4

14.1

16.9

A drop in A. Lukashenko’s electoral rating did not lead to a growth in the ratings of his political opponents. In December A. Sannikov’s rating made up 7.1%, V. Neklyaev’s – 6% which did not prevent appearance of a mythical rival with a fantastic rating equaling 44.6%. The candidate was revealed when respondents were answering the question: “If you knew a person who could successfully compete with A. Lukashenko at the next elections, would you vote for him, or for A. Lukashenko?” The fourfold winner of presidential election campaigns would entirely yield to such a rival: 44.6% vs. 21.7%. However, one should not cherish vain hopes: as soon as the mythical candidate acquires real traits, his electoral halo will begin to lose its luster. Such phenomenon has been observed during the years of holding independent public opinion polls more than once.

Electoral longevity of A. Lukashenko is not least of all connected with his ability to understand problems and concerns of ordinary people (“such people as you are”). However, in December only 31.3% of respondents confirmed that he possessed the ability, and 52% denied it to him. The point here is not only in certain assessments, though. Just as sociologists “draw” the given ratings in advance, they can “draw” answers to any question. However, what should one do with A. Lukashenko’s public statements? Speaking to the Russian journalists at the height of the currency crisis he quite sincerely demonstrated his failure to understand the reasons for the feverish demand for hard currency on the part of the population. He supposed that only those who planned to spend their vacations on the beaches of Egypt needed currency, while people were simply trying to protect their ruble savings from depreciation.