FINAL RESULTS OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

ENDURING ECHO OF CHERNOBYL
Quite recently Belarus commemorated twentieth anniversary of the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. They have been speaking much, on the top level including, about the measures taken for the most efficient post-disaster cleanup. It was said there are no grounds for concern, “emotions should be left in the past”, etc. In other words, the authorities do their best to diminish importance of the Chernobyl problem...

IS EVERYTHING THAT FINE WITH US?
The polling data show that the generally positive perception of dynamics of personal welfare among Belarusians is getting stronger (See Table 1). In particular, the number of those who think that their welfare improved over the past three months has increased almost four-fold over the past three years (from 6.5% to 24.7%) and the number of those who think it went down has decreased by more than threefold over the same period (from 41.6% to 12.4%)...

THE MAJORITY LOVES RUSSIA AND NOT USSR!
As it goes from poll result, when it comes to choice of the development path for the country, approximately one third of respondents (32.6%) prefer accession of Belarus into the European Union and slightly more than a half of respondents (53.9%) would choose integration with Russia. For the past two years, supporters of Europe-oriented integration decreased very insignificantly (less than by 4 points). However, supporters of East-oriented integration have grown up from 41% to 53.9%, i.e. by a third. This happened due to a considerable decrease in the number of vacillating (from 22.5% to 13.5%)...

INNOCENCE VS. BELTRANSGAZ
In the Belarusian mentality, Russia is not only its closest ally but perhaps the only ally: the majority of Belarusians estimate low the friendliness of other countries towards Belarus. In addition, most of the so-called friends are situated far from Belarus (like China and Kazakhstan) and don’t raise great sympathy, unlike Russia...

WHERE DOES EUROPE END?
Answers of respondents to the questions on self-identification divided almost equally between “Europeans” and “Soviet men”. Remarkably, this ratio was slightly different during the previous March-April 2006 polling: 52% of “Soviet men” vs. 36% of “Europeans.” Such fluctuations reveal that the above characteristic is not only and not so much self-identification but rather response to political events: mass actions of protest after the presidential election, sharp response of the West to the election results, or Gazprom’s gas offer for 2007 could directly influence answers of respondents to the above question...

FOES ARE STILL ALL AROUND?
In October of 2005 (article “Foes All Around?”) we offered to you analysis of the results of September’05 opinion poll presenting foreign political estimates and priorities of Belarusians. We asked these questions again in the April of 2006. You may see what have changed below. Obviously, foreign political priorities of respondents have undergone substantial changes over the past six months. In the article “Foes All Around?” we underlined that the world pattern existing in the minds of Belarusians is very Soviet-like: There is a hostile West vs. a kind of a socialistic camp in which Belarus takes its place...

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