BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND POWER

The change in the level of Belarusians trust in different state and public institutions, perhaps, is mainly characterized by the very society, then by institutions. Orthodox Church, the army and the president institute have been the three institutions in the lead for the last years. The latter can be only partially considered the institution, as it is associated with the definite personality. Such a structure of leadership was not always the same. In the period from the end of 2002 till the beginning of 2003 A. Lukashenko’s electoral rating and rating of trust substantially decreased, this put the president institute in the middle of the list.

However, despite of some exceptions which only confirm the rule, such important for moving ahead institutions as the Parliament, local authorities and local parties showed and are always showing the lowest rate of Belarusians’ trust. The Belarusians also don’t trust Protestant Church, which is natural for mostly Orthodox country.

For the last six months there have been no significant changes in answering the question about trust (Table 1), which reinforces marked in March public opinion poll calmness of the Belarusian society, bound up with getting constantly rising prices into the habit.

To analyze the changes occurred it is more convenient to use not the level of trust or mistrust but trust indices (the proportion of difference of those trusting and distrusting to the number of those having answered). Such an index conveys more objective information, firstly, because it doesn’t depend on the share of the people who found it difficult to answer the question, secondly, the levels of trust and distrust sometimes can change at some stage causing difficulty in comparative interpreting.

While compiling Table 2 the dates of the previous polls were chosen not accidentally: March, 2003 was the time of A. Lukashenko’s minimum rating, April, 2006 was the first poll conducted after the end of the third presidential elections, May, 2007 was the period of the Belarusian-Russian crisis. All the institutions are grouped in accordance with their internal relationships (sometimes, merely formal). Groups and institutions in them are both arranged according to the public opinion poll of 2003.

In the chosen by us temporal line trust index (TI) of the Orthodox Church passed through its peak at the moment of conducting presidential elections, which confirms the existence of close relationships between the state and the Orthodox Church (according to the public point of view). Today Orthodox Church TI has fallen to its minimum, observed in the period A. Lukashenko's legitimacy crisis. The cause of similar fluctuations of Catholic Church TI is not quite understandable. Possibly, its level of becoming a state church is higher in the eyes of the population, than in the expert society. At the end of June, 2008 (after public opinion poll conducting) there was held a meeting of A. Lukashenko with State Secretary of the papal throne, Cardinal T. Bertonne, in the course of which the head of the state sent his invitation to Pope Benedict XVI to visit Belarus. If the guess made by us is correct, so we have to expect considerable rise of Catholic Church TI in the nearest future. What concerns the Protestant Church, its TI has considerably risen for the last two years. The nearest future will show if this tendency is long-lived.

The dynamics of mass media TI can be surely put down to one of the main events of late. In the year of "legitimacy crisis" independent mass media TI was much higher than TI of the competitive state mass media. The rise of A. Lukashenko's popularity to its peak in 2006 made a peculiar lateral movement of independent and state mass media TI, however, the Belarusian-Russian crisis re-established the previous ratio. Though the TI of independent mass media has slightly fallen for the last six months, TI difference of competitive media institutions has risen again.

The similar dynamics was observed at TI of research centers. Of course, the population has quite a vague idea of their work. It more likely reacts to the words "independent" and "state".

It is amazing, but free and independent trade unions have a higher TI, than trade unions incorporated into the Trade Union Federation. Possibly, it is easy to explain: the former are quite small in numbers, so there is nobody to express his trust in them in public opinion polls. The latter for the majority of the Belarusians appear part of state enterprises administration. That's why the attitude to them depends on the general economics situation.

The TI of entrepreneurs' unions appeared to be most constant. To all appearances, it is difficult for the population to assess the influence of these organizations on their life. And trust in international organizations and law-enforcement agencies slowly but constantly rises. The definite role conceivably played the EU drawing nearer to the Belarusian frontiers. International news (first of all European one) takes more place in the information space. The growth of popularity of such information sources as the Internet and Russian service of the channel "Euro news" contributes to it. As for law-enforcement agencies, so, firstly, they are positively influenced by going on changes in the information space, and, secondly, official propaganda, paying quite enough attention to the political opposition, never singled out law-enforcers into a special category of "ruffians".

As far as dynamics of president TI is concerned, it was regularly commented by us, and we won't stop at it as well. But the practical equality of government TI and president TI is seen for the first time. What is it: accidental fluctuation or a new tendency? Now it is impossible to answer definitely. In the conditions of authoritarian regime of the personal power the Belarusian government has no source of its own legitimacy, so its TI was always lower than TI of the president, and was changing simultaneously with it.

Law-enforcement institutions also lose their trust before the population. In the first place is militia which the population confronts more often. The TI of courts is still positive, but there is little left to cross a zero level. The data of Table 3 show that it may happen in the nearest future. The share of respondents who agree that it is practically impossible to expect justice from the courts has increased by 10.6 points only for a year.

At the end of the list are institutions of representative government organs and political parties. The institute of parliamentary being in this “company” on the threshold of September elections shows which role it plays in the life of the Belarusian society.

Back   Top