Public opinion: The future, which is more important than the present

Summary

Despite the fact that household incomes climbed above the pre-crisis level in 2013, social feeling indexes did not show the same trend. Fluctuations of Alexander Lukashenko’s electoral rating were thus not directly linked with socioeconomic indicators.

In general, Belarusian society remains conservative and cautious. People want to see an alternative to the policy pursued by the president, but paternalistic moods still prevail. Society would apparently prefer a ‘repair’ of the socio-economic model to a full-scale reform. The degree of readiness for any forms of political activity remains very low.

Trends:

• The level of electoral support for the president is no longer directly dependent on socioeconomic indicators;
• Society is quite hungry for changes, but mostly in the form of adjustments to the existing model without massive upheaval or high costs;
• Most people are still wary of the opposition, although its most creative representatives are gaining popularity;
• Pro-European attitudes are decisively more popular than pro-Russian ones;
• The potential of a national revival is quite high.

Presidential rating in the zone of instability

The rating of President Lukashenko no longer systematically correlates with socioeconomic indicators, first of all household incomes, which is a noticeable trend of the period under review. This is probably a psychological consequence of the financial crisis of 2011. In the first year of the recovery from the crisis, it was most likely temporary inertia after the stress experienced by society, while, by the end of 2013, there is every reason to assume that we are dealing with a new sustainable trend.

As seen from Table 1, the presidential rating and public confidence indexes fluctuated considerably (up to 10%) over the year. No objective socioeconomic reasons for so wild fluctuations were observed in 2013. There were no major cataclysms in the social sector either. On the contrary, household income grew above the pre-crisis level (see Table 2).

The dynamics of the presidential rating generally correlates with the subjective indexes of social feeling of the population (see Table 3).

A decline in the social feeling index by year’s end cannot be explained by external circumstances. Lukashenko himself is probably the one to blame for the deteriorated social feeling, as he used to publicly scarify the government and the entire power vertical all year round, thus assessing the general state of the Belarusian economy as unsatisfactory.

Lukashenko criticized not only the government and the state of the economy, but, in fact, the people of Belarus. The hard feelings appeared to be mutual: responses to the political strategy of the president in December 2013 were mostly negative: 36% of respondents believed that his only strategy was “to retain power as long as possible and to control the situation in the country”, and 22% shared the opinion that the head of state had no strategy whatsoever.

Fewer Belarusians take president’s statements as read. Only 25.4% believed Lukashenko when he spoke about the relevance of an industrial upgrade, and 59% were confident that the modernization was actually a “failure.” Only 22% believed the president when he claimed that the new Palace of Independence in Minsk did not cost the budget a “single ruble”, and 60% of respondents were skeptical about that.

Also, frequent presidential initiatives to collect extra dues from the population caused a deep repulsion even among Lukashenko’s devoted voters. So, the USD 100 country exit fee, which he proposed in December 2013 for all who travels abroad, was met with indignation from 65% of respondents, and only 14% agreed that it made sense. Sixty-one percent spoke against the “tax for parasites” (i. e. the people who do not work officially and therefore do not pay taxes) and the increased state tax on private cars, and only 23% agreed with them.

Nevertheless, despite a decline in popularity at the end of the year and dissipation of its ‘sacral’ component, as noted by analysts of the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), Lukashenko managed to retain his ‘electoral core’ (32% to 35% of potential voters). This ‘core’ can be sized up judging by the following December indexes: 38% trusted the president, 32% believed that the country was going in a right direction, 37% were grateful to the president for leading the country out of the crisis, and 30% intended to vote for pro-presidential candidates in local elections regardless of their personal qualities.

It is obvious, though, that the incumbent president and the state, which he impersonates, are vulnerable in electoral terms. In particular, notable is the negative dynamics of the index of the “correctness of the line of policy” pursued by the country’s leadership (see Table. 3). The demand for “changes” is increasing: in September, 50.3% of respondents stated their wish for “profound changes in domestic and foreign policy.”

Skepticism about the existing social model is also growing. More and more voters believe that it poorly correlates with the official myth of a ‘social welfare state.’ According to the September survey by the IISEPS, 47% of respondents did not feel protected by law. When asked “Who prospers the most in Belarusian society today?” 45% pointed at people in high offices and 44% said “people with profitable connections.” Only 24% believed that “highly skilled and talented” people could achieve success, and even fewer (21%) thought that “diligence” was of essence.

Meanwhile, nothing suggests that Belarusian society really understands the need to change the socioeconomic model. For the most part, people are still paternalistically inclined and spontaneously leftist. The answers to the question about the role of the state (in September 2013) are quite illustrative in this respect. So, liberal postulates like “The state should only assist the weak and helpless” and “The state should not interfere in the lives of the citizens, and all should only rely on themselves” polled 18.3% together. The moderate left and the extreme left statements like “The government must provide a certain minimum to all citizens, and those who want more must go for it independently” and “The state must ensure equality (property, legal and political) of all citizens” are perceived enthusiastically by 79.2%. Over 35% of respondents thus want to be equal in property terms.

Belarusians do not support other basic components of the liberal democratic philosophy either: 60% said that “It is more important to Belarus to have good leaders” (September), and only one third opted for the thesis “It is more important to Belarus to have good laws.” They more like pin hopes on a ‘repair’ of the current system seeing a solution in “rooting out corruption” and “higher effectiveness of state officials” (40% and 31%, respectively), while “development of democracy, increased social and political activity of citizens” were the least popular answers with only 18%.

Political alternative: People’s Referendum

Over the past decade and a half of Alexander Lukashenko’s presidency, opposition candidates combined usually polled 20% to 25% during presidential campaigns. Between the elections, opposition politicians and political parties are not able to reach these figures: six months after an election, ratings of politicians usually do not exceed 5% to 7% and parties poll 4% to 5%.

Over the period under review, the electoral potential of the opposition was low as it used to be despite the dissatisfaction with the president’s policy and the distinctly expressed wish for social and political changes recorded by sociologists. In June 2013, only 10.7% of respondents associated the hope for “economic development of Belarus” with political parties and civic movements. Only 15.4% said that they trusted opposition parties (this figure remained almost unchanged in September and December making up 15.3% and 15.8%, respectively).

However, since 2012, the Tell the Truth movement has achieved some rating success, and this trend continued in 2013. According to the December poll by the IISEPS, 9.9% of respondents were ready to vote for Tell the Truth candidates in the parliamentary elections, and the presidential rating of leader of the movement Vladimir Neklyaev reached 7.1% (up 2% since September). Tell the Truth has a high index of awareness (39%). A positive attitude to Tell the Truth was declared by 16% of respondents, while only 6% of answers were negative. None of political movements or their leaders have ever achieved such stable results since the ‘era of the Belarusian Popular Front.’

All other political leaders, potential presidential contenders from the opposition, were considerably behind Neklyaev in December 2013. Ratings of most of them did not exceed the statistical error: Andrei Sannikov polled 3.2%, Anatoly Lebedko 0.7%, and Vitali Rymashevski 0.3%.

The People’s Referendum initiative announced in spring 2013 helped Tell the Truth to achieve a relatively high ranking. The June survey showed that the initiative enjoyed strong support of voters. At that time, 52.3% of respondents wanted the referendum and 32% did not. 57.5% declared their readiness to put signatures in support of the referendum and 22% (half a million of Belarusian voters) were ready to join an initiative group to assist in collecting signatures in support of the referendum. Political preferences practically did not affect the readiness to collect signatures, which was quite surprising: 20.8% of respondents were Lukashenko’s committed supporters and 23.3% were his vocal opponents.

Two thirds of the Belarusians, including 62.5% of the incumbent’s supporters, answered “yes” to the question “In your opinion, if political forces suggested a people’s referendum on the future of the country and collected the required signatures, would the authorities agree to hold it?” Around a half (46.1% vs. 34.8%) believed that the referendum could help to improve the situation in the country.

The attitude to the People’s Referendum showed that Belarusian citizens were interested in evolutionary rather than revolutionary projects, minimum social costs thus being of importance. According to the June survey, topping the list of the questions, which should be put to a referendum, were those related to the economy (51.6%), health care (45.7%), education (36.0%), and a pension reform (32.5%).

The emphasis on the major issues, which voters are concerned about the most, let the referendum initiators enlist popular support. As IISEPS experts say, the more the opposition “is focused on the people”, the more reciprocity it can count on.

The energetic campaign to promote the People’s Referendum on socially sensitive issues has popularized not only Tell the Truth, but also other initiators, namely the For Freedom movement and the Belarusian Popular Front, which 6.7% and 4.6% of respondents were ready to vote for, respectively. Tell the Truth and For Freedom outstripped the huge pro-presidential NGO Belaya Rus (‘White Russia’), which only captured 6.6% of the vote. Electoral support for other opposition parties is weaker: the United Civil Party led by Anatoly Lebedko polled 4.2%, Sergei Kalyakin’s United Left Party Fair World 4.1%, and the Belarusian Christian Democracy party of Vitali Rymashevski 1.8%.

Geopolitical orientation: East or West?

In 2013, the number of those who would prefer integration with Russia was going down. In December, only 23.9% would say “yes” to the Belarus-Russia association and 51.4% would vote against it. For comparison: they were 27.6% and 46.9% in September and 31.2% and 46.5% in June, respectively. The military integration with Russia is even less popular in Belarusian society than the political integration: in June 2013, only 19.8% reacted positively to the statement by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the probable deployment of a Russian airbase in Belarus, 35.6% did not care, and 36% did not like the idea.7

The ‘disappointment’ in Russia has not however led to a marked increase in pro-European attitudes. The corresponding index remained relatively high throughout the year, though. The other option was much less popular. When asked whether “Belarus should join the European Union”, 35.9% said “yes” and 34.6% said “no” in December. They were 37.8% and 37.5% in September and 37.7% and 38.1% in June, respectively.

In general, pro-European moods in Belarus can be described as quite strong. This is especially indicative considering that no one actually advocates the European integration systematically except Alexander Milinkevich and For Freedom. For comparison, in January 2014, a poll conducted by Socis Center in Ukraine showed that the European integration was supported by slightly more people (42.9%). It should be emphasized that the pro-European orientation of Ukraine was thus massively propagandized there for a very long time.

National revival potential

Almost all opposition political forces have distanced themselves from the national perspective in the last 15 years since the split in the Belarusian Popular Front, which weakened the party greatly. They consider the electoral potential of the national revival to be unworthy of hard effort. However, IISEPS’ research shows that this opinion seems disputable, to say the least. According to the June survey, 43.2% of respondents said that Belarusian should be the only state language, 7.2% would vote for the Russian language, and 47.7% would like to have both. 66% believed that the “revival of the Belarusian language requires state support.”

A similar situation is observed when it comes to national symbols: 34% would choose the Pagonya emblem and the white-red-white flag as state symbols (a 6% increase compared with 2009). This is also interesting given that both suggested symbols have not been popularized for many years, and the level of confidence in the opposition remains low. At the same time, 51.5% like the present national symbols.

Findings of the December poll were also very interesting. One of the questions concerned a radical statement by one of the leaders of the Conservative Christian Party BPF Yuri Belenky, who said “If you speak in Russian, you are in an army of occupation. You shoot at your own people!” Predictably enough, most people (77.6%) responded negatively. Surprisingly, 15% agreed with Belenky, which is an enormous proportion in a society proud of its open-mindedness, IISEPS analysts say. These figures suggest that a national revival ideology, especially if formulated less radically, can win the support of a great number of Belarusians.8

The December survey by the IISEPS also showed a relatively high degree of xenophobia in Belarusian society. When asked “What would you say if Russian nationals were invited to move to Belarus for good?”9 39% said “No, no more foreigners!” and 23.8% replied “OK, Belarus needs work force.”

Conclusion

In general, the year 2013 confirmed the thesis that the Belarusian political and socioeconomic model has been exhausted, which agrees with public opinion: a simple growth in prosperity is not enough to restore the pre-crisis confidence in the head of state, public policy and government institutions. We arrived at the conclusion that, wishing to avoid cataclysms and upheaval, the Belarusians nevertheless show interest in current (People’s Referendum) and potential (European integration, national identity) initiatives and projects which, presumably, can lay a foundation for sustainable improvements.