NO CHANGES AT THE ELECTORAL FRONT?

As the polling results show, the electoral breakdown in Belarus has changed insignificantly over the past four months. In general, both “peak point” and “pattern” remained unchanged. (See Table 1).

Table 1. Dynamics of answer distribution to the question “If the presidential election takes place tomorrow in Belarus, for whom would you vote?”, %

In each of the opinion polls, all other politicians (17 persons in November of 2004 and 28 persons in March of 2005) received less than 1% of votes. In particular, in the latest opinion poll 0.9% of respondents spoke out for M. Marinich, 0.8% – for Z. Poznyak and A. Klimov, A. Voitovich and A. Kozulin received 0.7% of votes each.

It should be noted that the ratings given in Table 1 were received in an open question. Respondents themselves named a politician they would like to vote for. As a rule, such rating gives the results most unfavorable for outsiders.

Meanwhile, Table 1 reveals that the number of those looking for an alternative is much greater than a small group of opposition candidate supporters. On the contrary, a great part of respondents who said they would vote for A. Lukashenko were led by “Who instead?” approach.

Table 2 gives rough estimate of president’s firm electorate. Thus, slightly over a quarter of respondents claim that they will remain loyal to their cult figure under any circumstances and even a hypothetic alternative doesn’t attract them. Every third respondent is ready to vote for such an alternative if there is any.

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question “If you knew a person able to compete successfully with A. Lukashenko at the next presidential election, would you vote for him/her or for A. Lukashenko?”

Presence or absence of an alternative as well as its weight is defined by the public opinion proper. Who the respondents consider as an alternative and to which extent? Table 3 gives certain clue.

Table 3. Distribution of answers to the question “In your opinion, who of the following politicians can compete successfully with A. Lukashenko at the next presidential election?” (more than one answer is possible)

Although the question in Table 3 was also open and respondents put the names themselves, the ratings are more favorable here for opposition politicians showing even a hierarchy. The estimates that respondents gave in their answers to this question can serve a kind of leading indicators, i.e. the greater is the estimate of politician’s “potential competitiveness”, the higher are his chances to attract more supporters to his side that is gain that same competitive ability.

Comparison of Tables 2 and 3 shows that the number of those who are ready to vote for a hypothetically strong alternative to A. Lukashenko (32.8%) is almost equal to those who already now see a certain politician as such an alternative (in Table 3, 100% – 67.9% = 32.1%). In other words, the group of voters that sticks to the “anyone except him” pattern is not very large and this makes the task of the politicians for opposition to win the votes of those who would at all vote for them even more difficult.

As a rule, candidates who are outsiders receive the most favorable ratings in so-called pair ratings. We offer to you such ratings in Table 4.

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question “Imagine you are offered two candidatures at the presidential election – A. Lukashenko and (name of real politician). For whom would you vote?”

Stability of A. Lukashenko’s rating is the most conspicuous in this table. His rating almost doesn’t depend on an alternative candidate and ranges from 2% to 48.1% (in the pair with A. Klimov) and to 46.1% (in the pair with A. Voitovich). Speaking about alternative candidates, the problem isn’t only in that the rating of the most successful candidate is several times lower than that of the president. Ratings of the candidates for the opposition are all of approximately the same order varying within the margin of representative error.

While discussing the procedure of sole candidate nomination, it was proposed to follow the rule of lowest negative rating, i.e. choose that candidate as a sole to whom the smallest number of respondents will give no vote. Variant of such a rating is given in Table 5.

Table 5. Distribution of answers to the question “For whom of the following potential presidential candidates would you vote and for whom you wouldn’t vote for sure?”, %*

* Table is read across

As one can see, negative rating of each candidate for the opposition is over 60%. Yet, even negative ratings are close so that it is hard to single out an undoubted leader.

We have already seen (Tables 2 and 3) that the number of respondents ready to vote for a candidate alternative to A. Lukashenko already now (about 33%) is threefold higher than the most favorable rating of the most successful candidate for the opposition. Attracting the remaining one third of voters to their side is the primary goal of the opposition, and it has no chances to win and especially stand any serious competition with the president in office unless consolidated around one sole candidate. At the current stage when candidates get prepared to the election, many of them position themselves as the only who person knowing the way to the soul of the people or, to put it in the language of political science, as the only candidate able to attract the electorate that their opponents cannot win. Of course, he/she shouldn’t take up politics who is not ambitious and thinks that any other man can substitute him. From the other hand, as the polling data shows, present electorates of the candidates for the opposition overlap greatly that can be see from Table 6 built on data of Table 5.

Table 6. Indicators showing readiness of the opposition candidate electorates to vote for their contenders within the opposition, %*

* Table is read across, i.e. the first figure in the first line means that 32.0% of those ready to vote for A. Voitovich are also ready to vote for А. Klimov, etc.
** Average indicators showing readiness of this politician’s electorate to vote for other politicians.

Thus, each candidate’s supporters are ready to vote for the other opposition candidates. In other words, no one of the politicians specified has a significant electorate that wants to see this candidate only in the presidential seat. The electorate of each candidate comprises mostly the electorates of other candidates. Therefore, unwillingness to cooperate and aversion of others may bring to repulsion from themselves that is from their supporters.

In general, over 30% of respondents are ready to vote for one or another candidate (in total, ten democratic candidates were listed). This means that consolidated electorate of democratic candidates is threefold larger than the electorate of each of them. An alternative candidate having 30% of votes will anyway yield to the current president but will get a powerful resource for after-election political activity in both Belarus and abroad. Clearly, it is hardly possible to single out today (and in the near future as well) “the most sole” democratic candidate. Yet, it is entirely possible and absolutely necessary to introduce “united team” to the democratic electorate. If by any reasons – not enough signatures for registration, quit the fight due to pretended violations, received less votes in preliminary opinion polls – a candidate loses chances to get the first seat, he is then positioned as a second, third, etc. person from the team of that candidate who meets all the requirements (Prime Minister, Head of Presidential Administration, Minister of Defense, Minister of Foreign Affairs, etc.). Only this team-member approach can ensure support of a consolidated democratic electorate and open a new way to reaching changes, other than ratio of votes 10-15% vs 55-60%. Will the candidates be able to come to an agreement? So far, there is time and all the possibilities for this.