ANNUAL SPEECH OF THE PRESIDENT

Annual speech of the president is a significant political event in a country. Belarus is not an exception. Two thirds of the Belarusians (68.5%) knew that on May 23 President A. Lukashenko came with the annual statement to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly (30.9% knew nothing about this). Remarkably, this ‘math of awareness’ about V. Putin’s annual statement in Russia was the same to one percent (www.levada.ru).

The split within the Belarusian society into supporters and opponents of A. Lukashenko didn’t influence much people’s concern in the speech: 73.3% of supporters and 66.1% of opponents were aware about the president’s statement (supporters are those who trust A. Lukashenko, consider him an ideal of a politician and are ready to vote for his presidency both in Belarus and in the Union State; opponents are those who don’t trust him, don’t consider him an ideal of a politician and who wouldn’t vote for him.) President is a real agent of politics. People can feel differently about him/her, but the policy he/she carries influences each one of us. This expounds for the intense social concern.

The annual speech of the president introduced to the newly set long- and short-term goals as well as gave assessment of home and foreign menaces. The Table 1 presents opinions of Belarusian citizens on the key issues of this speech. Opinions of presidential opponents and supporters are given separately.

As it has turned out, the two implacable camps within the Belarusian society disagree deeply on the issues aired by the president. The Belarusians are unanimous in their free meal-ticket preferences, they are equally afraid that cheap Chinese goods may threaten the economy and that rise in prices for energy may destabilize the current situation. Their political preferences do not put them on different sides in what concerns building of a new power plant. The Belarusians are strongly against such construction and even possible increase in gas costs cannot cure the Chernobyl syndrome. Yet, from the European perspective of the Belarusian economics, it looks a black-and-white picture under A. Lukashenko. The number of optimists measuring the distance to the European well-being within a five-year term differs drastically: 32.7% of supporters and only 3.7% of opponents believe in such a short term. The difference is approximately the same in what regards president’s statement about possible implementation of this goal except that pessimists and optimists exchange the columns.

Opinion of A. Lukashenko’s opponents and supporters about the party of power needs special comment. In general, this proposal – only mentioned in passing among other things – didn’t find support in the society. However, supporters of the president who declined this ‘party of power’ are by 6.7 points more than his opponents! The populist president doesn’t need intermediaries. He directly communicates his potential electorate and his pre-election slogan “I’m neither with the left nor with the right. I’m with the people!” is still demanded.

While answering to the questions of Deputies of the National Assembly, they touched upon the issue of a dialogue between the power and the opposition. A. Lukashenko spoke clear-cut in this regards, “We are ready to the dialogue with the opposition.” In the opinion of the president, this is the opposition that is not ready to a positive dialogue.

Let’s take a look at the Table 2. Prevailing number of answers to the question “In your opinion, should the authorities and the opposition hold a dialogue?” reveals the notorious tolerance of the Belarusians. What’s more, readiness to such a dialogue among A. Lukashenko’s opponents is by 17.3 points higher which contradicts to the president’s statement. However, opinions on the necessity of such a dialogue vary considerably. It is possible that president’s supporters simply believe his statements saying that talks of the president with politicians like O. Abramova are a typical example of such a dialogue.

The majority of Belarusians don’t hesitate about defining a guilty. They blame those whom they don’t like. Thus, president’s supporters blame the West in frustrating the dialogue, which is very clear taking into account the official propaganda. We should like to pay your attention to Russia, or rather to its absence in the public opinion. As for the idea of Z. Poznyak about “the hand of Moscow,” it didn’t find support even with president’s opponents.

The nature of political tolerance of Belarusians is also exposed in answers to the question “What is your attitude to the people who have an opinion – on some political issues – different from yours (for example, attitude to A. Lukashenko, to integration with Russia, accession to the EU, etc.)?” Slightly over a half of respondents (52.1%) say this doesn't matter to them, 35.7% have respect to the opinion of other people and 11.7% don’t have respect to their opinion. Variance of answers given by A. Lukashenko’s supporters and his opponents lies within the margin of error. Does this mean that the line between tolerance and indifference lies within this same margin of error? The speech of the president under the conditions when the society is split brings to sharply polarized estimates which increase it even greater. Social stability conceals this polarization from an outside looker but it fails before sociological surveys.

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