The headline, under which we presented the analysis of the social mood indices according to the results of March poll 2010, read “The Turning Point of the Tendency”. The ground for such a challenging conclusion was a downward change in the indices, which was first registered after June last year. The world crisis, notwithstanding numerous optimistic political statements, still fails “to resolve”, and the open Belarusian economy cannot cut itself off. Therefore, the change of the moods of Belarusians in the first spring month seemed quite logical.
But that logic had not satisfied the Belarusian authorities just before the pending presidential election. Thus, amid the line of “belt-tightening”, which becomes increasingly prominent in the majority of industrially developed countries, “one little but very proud-hearted bird” nesting in the geographical centre of Europe has decided to accrue social payments. According to Belstat data, the real value of cash incomes for January-April 2010 has increased by 7.2% as compared to the similar period of the previous year. However, the retail turnover in comparable prices managed to have added promptly 14.1%. Such discrepancy became possible because Belarusians rejected to save. Trusting the official propaganda, they began to actively take consumer credits again.
As a result, the material welfare index (MWI) (Table 1) has practically returned to the pre-crisis value of September 2008. It happened first of all because of the reduction of the share of respondents, whose material standing has worsened for the last three months (from 29.8% in March to 19.7% in June). Meanwhile, the share of those who have pointed out improvement of their material standing has increased insignificantly (from 9.3% to 13.9%), the share of those who have not noticed any changes has increased correspondingly.
Table 1. Dynamics of answering the question, “How has your material standing changed for the last three months?”, %
| Variant of answer |
11’06 |
09’08 |
12’08 |
03’09 |
06’09 |
09’09 |
12’09 |
03’10 |
06’10 |
| Improved |
21.0 |
17.4 |
9.4 |
1.9 |
5.5 |
10.9 |
7.3 |
9.3 |
13.9 |
| No change |
64.7 |
59.0 |
55.4 |
31.0 |
56.9 |
47.9 |
65.7 |
59.8 |
65.1 |
| Worsened |
12.8 |
21.9 |
33.8 |
63.8 |
36.5 |
36.9 |
26.0 |
29.8 |
19.7 |
| MWI* |
8.2 |
–4.5 |
–21.4 |
–61.9 |
–31.1 |
–26.0 |
–18.7 |
–20.5 |
–5.8 |
* Material welfare index (the difference of positive and negative answers)
Against a major upsurge of the material welfare index, the expectations index (EI) proved amazingly stable (Table 2). It has not practically changed. As has been frequently noted earlier, EI is characterized by a higher response to the information spread via Mass Media and interpersonal communication (rumors), therefore at the turning point of tendencies it demonstrates a greater amplitude as compared to other indices. The growth of MWI occurred under the influence of increase of the real incomes of the population, but it by all accounts has not given rise to strong prospects for the future. Consider this: the percentage of the respondents, who believe the socio-economic situation in Belarus in the coming years to remain unchanged, has increased to a record-breaking value due to the simultaneous reduction of the optimist and pessimist shares. This means that the majority of Belarusians do find sufficient grounds to believe in positive changes, yet, one does not want to believe in deterioration of the socio-economic situation at all.
Table 2. Dynamics of answering the question, “How will, in your opinion, the socio-economic situation in Belarus change in the coming years?”, %
| Variant of answer |
11’06 |
09’08 |
12’08 |
03’09 |
06’09 |
09’09 |
12’09 |
03’10 |
06’10 |
| It will improve |
42.5 |
34.0 |
14.2 |
13.7 |
28.3 |
33.0 |
34.7 |
29.3 |
24.7 |
| It won’t change |
37.7 |
40.8 |
35.2 |
30.5 |
38.0 |
34.9 |
37.3 |
46.0 |
52.9 |
| It will get worse |
10.7 |
18.2 |
38.2 |
45.9 |
25.4 |
20.8 |
15.7 |
18.8 |
13.6 |
| EI* |
31.8 |
15.8 |
–24.0 |
–32.2 |
2.9 |
12.2 |
19.0 |
10.5 |
11.1 |
* Expectations index
In the times of the Soviet mobilization society social optimism was a mandatory attribute of a person. Drawbacks a person regularly faced in everyday life were usually considered “odd” and “temporary”. Their existence was explained by “the intrigues” of enemies and “survivals of time passed”. Mass social optimism was supported in those years not only by means of well-adjusted pressure techniques but also due to the lack of any alternative. A Soviet citizen just did not have anything to compare the rate of his/her material welfare. In this respect the present-day political “elite” in Belarus has bad luck. In the absence of “the iron curtain” it requires much more financial resources to support social optimism at a rate necessary to ensure social stability. This conclusion is vividly confirmed by official statistics.
A similar situation formed in June as regards the direction rightness index (Table 3). It has increased just by two points due to the reduction of the percentage of the respondents not approving of the country’s development line, whereas the percentage of the advocates of the official line has not changed. Summarizing the data of three tables, anxious uncertainty is rising in the Belarusian society. People are lying in wait of the salary of $ 500 by the end of the year not even believing till the end that the dream-promise may come true.
Table 3. Dynamics of answering the question, “In your opinion, is the state of affairs in our country generally developing in the right or in the wrong direction?”, %
| Variant of answer |
06’06 |
09’08 |
12’08 |
03’09 |
06’09 |
09’09 |
12’09 |
03’10 |
06’10 |
| In the right direction |
56.9 |
53.4 |
45.3 |
40.0 |
47.9 |
53.3 |
47.2 |
49.5 |
49.5 |
| In the wrong direction |
31.0 |
30.0 |
34.0 |
34.9 |
33.6 |
31.0 |
32.0 |
35.6 |
33.6 |
| DA/NA |
12.1 |
16.6 |
20.7 |
25.1 |
18.5 |
15.7 |
20.8 |
14.9 |
16.9 |
| DRI* |
25.9 |
23.4 |
11.3 |
5.1 |
14.4 |
22.3 |
15.2 |
13.9 |
15.9 |
* Direction rightness index
The data of Table 4 allow assessing the dynamics of fears of Belarusians for the last eleven years. The first column illustrates the fear rate a year before the second presidential election. Except for concerns, connected with the loss of work, the rate of all other fears was significantly higher as compared to the remaining months till the fourth presidential election. It should be noted that the rate of the fear of civil war (27.2%) is abnormally high that to all appearances might be considered a response to the second Chechnya war in Russia.
Table 4. Dynamics of answering the question, “What are you afraid of most of all today?”, % (more than one answer is possible)
| Variant of answer |
04’00 |
03’08 |
03’09 |
06’10 |
| Loss of health |
74.0 |
60.3 |
62.7 |
65.6 |
| Poverty |
56.3 |
46.2 |
56.1 |
45.8 |
| Loss of work |
21.7 |
25.9 |
34.5 |
32.1 |
| Arbitrariness of the authorities |
32.3 |
13.9 |
26.1 |
17.3 |
| Crime |
33.0 |
12.3 |
15.6 |
16.2 |
| Civil war |
27.2 |
8.5 |
16.6 |
9.8 |
| Foreign aggression |
7.2 |
8.2 |
16.1 |
6.4 |
| Loss of independence by Belarus |
8.7 |
3.8 |
7.4 |
5.2 |
| Other |
0.6 |
1.4 |
2.3 |
3.3 |
In the second column the rate of fear matches the pre-crisis state of the Belarusian economy. All values reduced. Some of them, several times. Meanwhile the fear to lose work increased. Obviously, those experts who maintained that before the beginning of the world crisis about 0.6 to 1 MIL of Belarusians had gone to work outside the country were right. Within the framework of “the Belarusian economic model” they had found no opportunities for their development.
The third column illustrates the state of the Belarusian society at the peak of the economic crisis. The fear rates for all entries increased, and the fear of poverty rose to the values of 2000. After several “fat” years provided by “the offshore oil” it is simply logical; however the same thing cannot be said as regards the doubling of the rates of civil war fear and foreign aggression fear. Obviously, the economic crisis multiplied by the January devaluation of the Belarusian rouble brought to life a major historic fear, the fear of war, in the subconscious of “Soviet Belarusians”.
The June poll (the fourth column) revealed the decrease of the fear rates almost to the pre-crisis level. The social payments reinforced by the propaganda hit the bull’s eye. If till the moment of voting the authorities are able to maintain the momentum gained, CEC will not have problems with the vote count.
For the first time in the recent years the social indices have not revealed a clear tendency in the dynamics of public trends. It is getting increasingly difficult to forecast. There are too many variables. The world economic crisis has not been cancelled yet. The difficult financial state, which a number of European countries are exposed to nowadays, may provoke “the second wave” of the crisis any time.
The June poll was conducted before the commencement of the active phase of a new ”gas war” between Belarus and Russia. The subjects in this war from both the parties are not power institutions, but a rather narrow circle of physical persons, whose personal interests have dominated social interests. The crisis has shown that during the years of independence no system barriers have been formed that could provide for prevention of voluntarism of such a limited circle of political subjects either in Belarus or in Russia.
In a favourable external economic situation the legitimacy of these subjects has been mainly ensured through material sops to citizens, which makes it impossible to take the “belt tightening” line. Distribution of profits is one thing, distribution of losses is another. Cash giving generates only a constant lack thereof and new demands.