IISEPS — Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Politycal Studies

SOME TO THE EAST AND SOME TO THE WEST?

Growing tension in Russia-Belarus relations which early this year ended up in yet another oil and gas conflict has brought up to significant changes in integration preferences of Belarusians. Data of opinion polls show that support by population of integration with the East has dropped down by almost 10 points over the past year and support of integration with the West has gone up by over 5 points. Dynamics of this process gives grounds to expect possible re-orientation of preferences in favor of the West.

On the other hand, as the opinion polls reveal, there’s strong disunity in our society about the direction of integration and it keeps growing. In this regards it is important to see what social groups of the population support each of the integration alternatives.

Table 1. Distribution of answers to the question: "If you had to choose between integration with Russia and accession to the EU, what would you choose?" depending on socio-demographic and geographic breakdown, %

Variant of answer	Integration with Russia (46.9)	Accession to the EU (34.4)
Gender:
Male	42.0	50.0
Female	58.0	50.0
Age :
below 30	14.4	34.1
30-50	34.7	48.2
50 +	51.0	17.6
Education:
Lower than secondary	31.9	12.7
Secondary (including vocational)	57.2	67.8
High (including incomplete)	11.0	19.6
Social status:
Public sector employee	38.9	41.2
Private sector employee	14.5	23.0
Student	2.3	10.1
Pensioner	38.9	10.0
Housekeeper, unemployed	5.4	7.3
Place of residence:
Minsk	16.9	19.7
Minsk region	12.7	24.6
Brest and Brest region	11.5	15.7
Grodno and Grodno region	11.2	10.5
Vitebsk and Vitebsk region	14.4	12.5
Mogilev and Mogilev region	13.7	10.7
Gomel and Gomel region	19.5	6.4
Type of settlement:
Cities (including regional centers)	52.5	57.1
Towns and villages	47.5	43.0

According to Table 1, the idea of integration with Russia has the most support among the female, aged, less educated, pensioners as well as residents of country’s eastern regions and smaller settlements. Adherents of the western direction are much younger and better educated. The majority of them are private sector employees, students as well as residents of cities and larger settlements. In addition, the difference of objective features of the two groups is significant.

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question: "If you had to choose between integration with Russia and accession to the EU, what would you choose?" depending on socio-economic assessments, %

Variant of answer	Integration with Russia (46.9)	Accession to the EU (34.4)
How has your welfare changed?
Improved	14.4	12.6
Hasn’t changed	71.6	62.9
Aggravated	12.4	23.4
How do you think will socio-economic situation in Belarus change in the near future?
Improve	30.9	19.0
Won’t change	46.6	40.3
Aggravate	14.5	33.7
What is your attitude to the citizens with high incomes?
Positive	23.6	36.0
Indifferent	41.5	42.3
Negative	32.0	17.3
If there are actions against aggravation of economic situation in your city/region, are you ready to take part in them?
Yes	12.8	27.4
No	80.5	62.9
Per capita income in your family:
Below the Minimum Consumer Budget	54.5	43.5
Above the Minimum Consumer Budget	44.7	56.5

Difference in personal characteristics of the two groups appears as well significant. This is well seen from Table 2 presenting socio-economic assessments given by each group. Thus, there are by far more respondents (almost twice as many!) who noted aggravation of their welfare among supporters of European vector of integration. Also, there are more of those among them who are pessimistic about country’s socio-economic prospects. On the contrary, there are more of optimists among supporters of Russian vector of integration.

Negative attitude to rich citizens is more characteristic of the supporters of integration to the East. There are more of those respondents among them who wouldn’t join the actions of protest against aggravation of their economic state.

Remarkably, supporters of eastern vector are much poorer than their pro-Western fellow citizens: distribution of respondents in the level of income within each group is obviously mirror-like.

This way data of the May polling once again prove substantial difference from supporters of alternative direction of integration. It is so deep that approximation of the two groups won’t happen in the near future.