Belarusians don’t believe deputies, but will vote

The Movement for Freedom (the MFF) activists performed public opinion research in Bielaaziorsk town on account of the forthcoming election of deputies for Local Councils.

214 people from various social and age groups were polled in the town under conditions of anonymity.

Everyone to the election!

According to the research, 72.9% of respondents will take part in the 26th election of the Local Councils, 6.5% refuse to participate, and 20.6% don’t know yet if they will participate.

 

Thus, activity level of the Belarusian voters will remain traditionally high during the approaching election campaign.

Elect and forget

Bielaaziorsk residents have opposite opinions in their assessment of activity of the Local Councils deputies: 15% of respondents assess the work of their representatives in the local government agencies as being positive, while 16.4% of respondents make a negative assessment. The majority of the respondents couldn’t provide any assessment of their deputies’ work, since they know nothing about it. Some 86% of respondents confessed they don’t even remember the name of the deputy who was elected in 2007.

Voters feel no dependence between voting and the results of elections. Local residents don’t see a person who becomes a deputy as their representative and as the defender of their interests. Communication between the deputies of Local Councils and the voters is minimized after the end of election campaigns.

People worry about health and work

Town dwellers think that Town Council deputies should improve the quality of health services (82%) in the first instance, should create new job positions (65%), should reconstruct the town park (52%), and should take care of children’s playgrounds (48%).

Quite often, voters no nothing of the rights and obligations of Local Councils deputies, and ask them to do things which exceed the limits of their competence.

Portrait of a deputy

Bielaaziorsk residents see the following persons as the Town Council deputies: physicians, teachers, culture area employees (121 respondents), working specialty representatives or specialists (120), and enterprise CEOs (111). The respondents tend to support the following persons least of all: opposition parties representatives (50), students (42), and unemployed persons (32).

The MFF activists performed similar opinion polls in other cities and towns of Belarus. The results of these polls mostly coincide with those collected in Bielaaziorsk.

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