WE WANT CHANGES

In his recent annual address on the situation in the country, President A. Lukashenko underscored that the current power is very stablesince it is led, first of all, by people’s interests. However, voters themselves don’t estimate high the work of the authorities. Thus, they estimate in the positive the work of the president only while the Parliament, government and the local authorities aren’t given even a “three” (See Table 1).

Table 1. Estimates of activity of the Belarusian authorities, given on a five-point scale (1 point – “poor”, 5 points – “excellent”, point averages are given in the table)

* Here and below are given the results of the nation opinion poll conducted by the IISEPS in March of 2005 (those interviewed are 1516, margin of error does not exceed 0.03)

Public opinion leaders and experts, especially those representing the private sector, are even more negative about activity of the authorities. In their opinion, none of them can be given even a satisfactory mark. Unlike common citizens, experts put the local authorities which got the poorest result during the nation opinion poll at first place and the Parliament didn’t get even a “two” mark.

How should we explain such a paradox? It is well known that all heads in the so-called “vertical of power” including chairmen of regional executive committees are appointed by the president proper. In other words, high estimate of their work given by experts points out to success of A. Lukashenko’s personnel policy. What’s more, by its nature this ‘vertical’ cannot go beyond the general line and carry a policy different from the one implemented by the president.

Perhaps, we might explain such difference of experts’ and common citizens’ estimates of president’s and vertical’s efficiency in the following way. Although very negative about A. Lukashenko’s political course, experts pay tribute to those who try to minimize negative consequences of the presidential course in their everyday and highly skilled work in the regions. It is no secret that there are plenty of well-trained and advanced employees in the vertical of power. In their turn, common voters who in most cases face exactly local authorities are dissatisfied with their work due to numerous problems when addressing everyday issues (like accommodation, transportation, medicine, etc). In this sense, hundreds of thousands of citizens are led by the “the king is good and the lords are bad” rule.

Difference of opinion between the elite and the population is especially obvious in their answers to the question on importance of either preservation or change of the current status quo in the country. (See Table 2).

The opinions of common citizens split almost equally while the experts (both from the public and private sector) are unusually unanimous in aversion of the country’s current state. Such an attitude of the private sector seems absolutely natural since representatives of “other Belarus” are currently barred from governance, their interests are deprived and the official propaganda presents them as “nationalists”, “dumb”, etc. Unanimity of public sector employees is certainly surprising. Apparently, drawbacks of the Belarusian socio-economic model have turned so essential for them that provoke such response.

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question “What is more important for you: preservation or changing of the current state in the country?”, %

How strong is the union of state and non-state elites both claiming necessity of changes in the country? What they think should be changed in the first place and who will carry these changes? The analysis shows no previous unanimity in the answers to these questions. (See Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question “ If changing current situation is more important for you, then what should be changed in the first place?”, %(open question)

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question “ In your opinion, who should undertake these changes?”, % (open question)

In their majority, representatives of the private sector seek to change the political system while public sector employees point out to equal necessity of political and economic reforms. Even greater is the discrepancy when it comes to the choice of those who would carry changes in the country. Private sector employees stake on the people and the opposition while public sector employees stake on the power to which they earlier gave low estimates.

What does all this reveal? Once again, we should like to underline that the Belarusian elite has reached consensus as regards the necessity of changes in the country. However, there’s no consensus when it comes to the nature of such changes and the political agents that would carry these changes.