IN ANTICIPATION OF ELECTION
The date of the next election in Belarus has been established. On January 14, 2007 Belarusian citizens will choose over 22,500 deputies into Local Councils – regional, district, city and village Councils. In its consequences, this election stands beyond any comparison with the presidential election. Coming to the presidential election, even under the authoritarian regime, the citizens choose not merely a head of state, they choose the course for country’s development for the next five years...

WHAT DO BELARUSIANS EXPECT FROM THE OPPOSITION?
A. Lukashenko started accumulating the political power in his hands right after the first presidential election in 1994. What did this publicly elected man begin from? As V. Lenin recommended, he yielded the mass media. Television was the first victim. Step by step, all state-run printed editions including Narodnaya Gazeta – an official mouthpiece of the Supreme Soviet – were taken under control...

ALL’S FINE, MY FAIR LADY!
Looking through state-run newspapers and those that are referred to as opposition newspapers in Belarus make give an impression that they are published in two different countries. First, almost any political event, either international or domestic, is given different and sometimes mirror-like assessment. Second, what is the breaking news for state-run editions may be omitted in opposition editions and vice versa...

WHO BELIEVE IN INDEPENDENT STATEHOOD OF BELARUS?
They use to install billboards in Belarusian cities promoting national prosperity where Belarusians of all ages (from babies to gray-haired veterans) are portrayed at the background of a short and eye-catching slogan “For Belarus!” rather than billboards with toothpastes and bright packages with detergents. This is not surprising. Despite globalization, the national axis remains a central axis in the beginning of XXI century and the most pressing problems in any society are concentrated around it...

WHAT IS THE BELARUSIAN NATION?
This question raised hot debates in some periods of the modern Belarusian history. Members of those discussions made their political conclusions on various answers to this question including the radical ones. In general, answers to this question group around three different variants - foundations of national identity, which are citizenship, birth (ethnicity) and culture (language). Respondents were offered to make choice out of these three identifiers of Belarusian nation...

LOVE TO RUSSIA, HOW MUCH IS IT?
According to opinion polls conducted this year by independent sociologists, attitude of Belarusians to integration with Russia changed insignificantly during this year...

WHOSE ARE YOU, GUYS?
During the latest population census in Belarus, 81.2% of population placed themselves among Belarusians, 73.7% said Belarusian is their native language but only 36.7% said they speak Belarusian at home (according to the data of opinion polls, the part of Belarusian-speaking citizens is several times lower)...

MOTHER TONGUE
IISEPS surveys of the languages which Belarusians use for communication usually provoked much criticism. In particular, they claimed that answers to the questionnaire might reflect only external side of language behavior which was coercive. In the opinion of critics, it would be more correct to ask respondents about their aspirations and about the language they would like to speak as their mother tongue...

MARGINS OF POPULISM
President A. Lukashenko is a populist. This is not the news, nor a state secret, nor a definition to disgrace or disparage the head of state because the president himself agrees with this definition. Yet in August of 1994, soon after his election, he explained his inclination to populism to Russian TV journalist A. Karaulov: “By the way, I don’t think populism is an extremely negative characteristic for a politician. Perhaps, it derives from the word popular”...

WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL OF RUSSIA-BELARUS FRIENDSHIP?
Sociologists are well aware that there are many objective factors as well as human factors that influence the formation of public opinion. The public opinion doesn’t work out notions of abstract matters that demand professional knowledge. How does it act then? It acts exactly like a visitor in a restaurant choosing from the menu. Who and why builds this menu is another question...

PARADOX OF THOSE NOT THINKING AND INDIFFERENT
Stated press conference of A. Lukashenko to mass media representatives was held on November 23. On the next day Sovetskaya Belorussia published a many-sheet record of the meeting and made a note at its very end that the record was insignificantly abridged. Our experience of work with this kind of publications proves that these are the most important quotes and not the secondary which are generally taken off...

A. MILINKEVICH’S RATING IS FALLING DOWN

HOW FAR ARE WE FROM EUROPE?
Prof. Oleg Manaev answering to Arche’s questions

Back   Top