Sociologist Filip Bikanov announced this during the presentation of another report of the research initiative "Belarusian Change Tracker".

He presented the data of the August online survey of 1,512 urban residents of Belarus.

During the research, the respondents were asked two questions about their attitude to the forceful methods of ousting Alexander Lukashenko from power: one - about the attitude of the interviewee himself, the second - in fact, about the attitude of the respondent's entourage towards such a perspective.

The projective question methodology was developed by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology to study the attitude of Ukrainians to territorial concessions in the war with Russia.

The Belarusian research asked the following questions:

Direct

On August 7-9, a conference of Belarusian democratic forces "New Belarus" took place in Vilnius.

One of the subjects of discussion at the conference was the removal of Alyaksandr Lukashenka from power by force.

Would you support or not support such a proposal?

Projective

Now there will be a slightly unusual question.

We will ask you to imagine any person you know.

It can be your mother, your friend, brother, any other acquaintance.

When answering the following question, please think about this person you know.

On August 7-9, a conference of Belarusian democratic forces "New Belarus" took place in Vilnius.

One of the subjects of discussion at the conference was the removal of Alyaksandr Lukashenka from power by force.

Do you think the person you thought of would support or not support such a proposal?

The answers to these questions of groups of interviewees with different attitudes towards Lukashenka are presented in the following graph.

The report notes that in 2020, public opinion in Belarus was determined by adherence to peaceful methods of protest and a change of power.

According to a survey conducted in September 2020, 75% agreed that protests should be peaceful (among them half thought they were exclusively peaceful), and only 4.5% believed that protests should use force.

The August 2022 poll, the data of which was presented by Philip Bikanov, indicates a significant increase in supporters of non-peaceful methods of power change.

There are quite a few of them even among relatively moderate groups, and among staunch opponents of Lukashenka they make up the vast majority.

In the first three segments, the number of positive answers to the projective question exceeds the number of positive answers to the direct question.

According to sociologists, a projective question slightly neutralizes the impact of the fear factor, the respondent is asked not about his own attitude, but rather about someone else's attitude.

At the same time, many people, answering a projective question, actually express their own attitude, which they are afraid to express directly.

According to the researchers, the answers to the projective question reflect "the feeling of a new normative framework of public opinion", how, according to the interviewees, their environment thinks, how Belarusians think.

In the group of staunch opponents of Lukashenka, the ratio of answers is reversed: the number of supporters of the force scenario in the answers to the direct question is greater than in the answers to the projective one.

In the report, this is explained by a certain inertia of public opinion, the memory of particularly active opponents of the regime that both they and the entire society two years ago were supporters of peaceful methods of power change almost entirely.

"While Lukashenka's regime, which bases its legitimacy largely on the apparatus of violence and repression, alienates half of the Belarusian society, within the group not included in the system, there is a growing demand for forceful instruments to resolve the political conflict," the report says.

"In such a situation, the inclusion of two "enforcers" in the Cabinet of Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya looks like a logical response to the request of the non-systemic part of society, which numbers millions of Belarusians," sociologists note.

  • Yuri Drakakhrust

    Radio Svaboda journalist


    drakakhrusty@rferl.org

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