According to the results of the opinion poll (See Table 1), citizens are very careful about most state and public institutions. These are first eight institutions only to which more respondents trust than distrust. People feel the highest credibility to the Orthodox Church which significantly outruns all other institutions. This is natural since almost three fourths of adult population in Belarus place themselves among Orthodoxy supporters. Also, the official propaganda of the formally secular state almost openly declares support of the authorities to this religion. Army is the second institution in the degree of trust. The next are state-run mass media and President. In other words, the traditional Slav formula of trust “God, king and army chief” works 100% in Belarus (the state-run mass media are nowadays mouth-pieces of the authorities and can hardly be considered as independent).
Table 1. Dynamics of trust to state-run and public institutions
| Institutions |
Trust, % |
Distrust, % |
Index |
|||
|
09’05 |
06’04 |
09’05 |
06’04 |
09’05 |
06’04 |
|
| Orthodox Church |
68.1 |
66.9 |
20.5 |
20.1 |
+0.481 |
+0.471 |
| Army |
58.7 |
55.3 |
28.4 |
28.6 |
+0.306 |
+0.269 |
| State-run mass media |
55.3 |
49.6 |
33.3 |
36.7 |
+0.222 |
+0.129 |
| President |
54.1 |
43.7 |
32.4 |
42.3 |
+0.218 |
+0.015 |
| Independent research centers |
43.2 |
46.9 |
27.3 |
20.2 |
+0.160 |
+0.268 |
| State-run research centers |
43.6 |
40.7 |
33.6 |
30.9 |
+0.101 |
+0.099 |
| Human rights organizations (Belarusian Helsinki Committee, etc.) |
35.4 |
28.6 |
31.1 |
27.3 |
+0.044 |
+0.013 |
| Catholic Church |
40.8 |
33.6 |
37.9 |
41.5 |
+0.030 |
–0.080 |
| Government |
41.3 |
31.9 |
42.8 |
51.0 |
–0.015 |
–0.193 |
| Non-state mass media |
38.5 |
42.4 |
43.2 |
38.7 |
–0.047 |
+0.038 |
| Central election commission |
38.0 |
32.5 |
43.8 |
48.4 |
–0.058 |
–0.160 |
| Free and independent trade unions |
33.2 |
34.0 |
38.1 |
34.3 |
–0.049 |
–0.003 |
| Courts |
39.5 |
36.4 |
46.6 |
46.8 |
–0.071 |
–0.105 |
| Unions of entrepreneurs |
32.0 |
29.5 |
39.1 |
37.2 |
–0.072 |
–0.077 |
| National Assembly |
34.3 |
23.2 |
42.2 |
49.1 |
–0.081 |
–0.262 |
| KGB |
32.8 |
34.2 |
42.8 |
40.2 |
–0.102 |
–0.061 |
| Trade unions incorporated in the Belarusian Trade Union Federation |
30.2 |
31.1 |
41.9 |
39.0 |
–0.119 |
–0.079 |
| Local executive committees |
35.8 |
29.3 |
49.2 |
49.7 |
–0.135 |
–0.205 |
| Local Councils of Deputies |
34.7 |
28.4 |
49.5 |
49.3 |
–0.150 |
–0.210 |
| Political parties supporting current authorities |
28.8 |
26.0 |
47.3 |
48.6 |
–0.187 |
–0.228 |
| Militia |
33.2 |
31.2 |
54.8 |
55.7 |
–0.218 |
–0.247 |
| Protestant Church |
15.9 |
13.2 |
58.4 |
57.3 |
–0.432 |
–0.445 |
| Opposition political parties |
15.2 |
20.0 |
60.0 |
48.5 |
–0.455 |
–0.288 |
Remarkably, the level of trust to these institutions has greatly increased comparing, for example, with June of 2004. This is especially true as regards the president. His level of trust has jumped almost 15-fold!
Research centers, both independent and state-run, human rights organizations as well the Catholic Church follow after. These institutions have positive index of trust. Growth of credibility to the Catholic Church is fairly obvious: more respondents trust to it that distrust (in the past, the ratio was always the opposite).
Opposition political parties are leading at the bottom of the table. Their index of trust is even lower than that of militia traditionally non-favored by the population. In fact, trust to militia has slightly increased while trust to opposition parties, on the contrary, dropped down even more.
Trust to the Protestant Church which usually took the last places is taken to a higher position. Low credibility to the Protestant Church is caused not only by the number of Protestant believers but also by discrimination policy and proper propaganda carried by the authorities.
Trust to the trade unions, both state-run, i.e. incorporated in the Belarusian Trade Union Federation, and free and independent ones, has dropped dramatically. Most likely, distrust to these institutions was born in their total inability to protect its members from recent nation-wide transition to contractual work striking at the rights of working people. What’s more, Trade Union Federation board implicitly supported this action of the authorities.
Basically, almost all key institutions of government appeared in the lower part of the list. Even though credibility to some of them (government, Central Election Commission, Court, National Assembly and local authorities) has slightly increased over lately, in general more people distrust them. A. Lukashenko feels this and regularly launches certain programs to combat against bureaucracy and corruptibility in the State machinery. The opinion poll results might revealed some effect of those programs in particular. However, there’s only one way to improve the situation radically. This is by restricting the role and importance of officialdom in the system of society management, expanding public self-management and developing features of civic society. The Belarusian authorities don’t want this, though.
As for the political parties supporting the president, population doesn’t trust them either. Apparently, the system of political governance built by A. Lukashenko in accordance with his own interpretation of democracy hasn’t yet established the place for parties.