One of the leading sociologic services of Belarus carried out a national sociological poll from 10 to 18 of December. Belarusian citizens (sample 1111 people) and Minsk (sample 203 persons) were asked topical questions concerning the possible third term of Lukashenka’s presidency, attitude towards oppositional coalitions: the European Coalition “Free Belarus” and People’s coalition “5+”, about the parliamentary elections-2004 and others. We offer you some results of this survey.

Belarus (sample 1111 people)

If the question of revocation of restriction of the right to take the presidential position by the same person more than 2 times would be asked at a referendum, what would be your answer?

	%
For	23,8
Against	56,3
Do not know/Hard to say	16,3
Refused to answer	3,7

If in the near future the elections to the Belarusian chamber of representatives took place, what candidate would you vote for?

	%
Non-party candidate supported by the authorities	14,0
A candidate from a political party	5,3
A candidate of a wide coalition of social and political forces	12,3
Independent candidate	38,3
Do not know/Hard to say	27,2
Refused to answer	3,1

Do you know about creation of the election People’s coalition “5+” in Belarus?

	%
Yes	9,5
No	90,5

If in the near future the elections to the “chamber of representatives” of Belarus took place, would you vote for the candidate of the People’s coalition “5+”?

Filter = question 3 – YES (105 respondents.)	%
Yes	37,3
No	17,0
Do not know/Hard to say	37,3
Refused to answer	8,5

Do you know about creation of election European coalition “Free Belarus” in Belarus?

	%
Yes	10,7
No	89,3

If in the near future the elections to the “chamber of representatives” of Belarus took place, would you vote for a candidate of the European coalition “Free Belarus”?

Filter = question 5 – Yes (119 respondents.)	%
Yes	36,4
No	21,8
Do not know/Hard to say	38,5
Refused to answer	3,3

Minsk (sample 203 people)

If the question of revocation of restriction of the right to take the presidential position by the same person more than 2 times would be asked at a referendum, what would be your answer?

	%
For	22,7
Against	62,9
Do not know/Hard to say	8,5
Refused to answer	5,9

If in the near future the elections to the Belarusian “chamber of representatives” took place, what candidate would you vote for?

	%
Non-party candidate supported by the authorities	12,4
A candidate from a political party	7,9
A candidate of a wide coalition of social and political forces	10,8
Independent candidate	44,7
Do not know/Hard to say	21,3
Refused to answer	2,9

Do you know about creation of the election People’s coalition “5+” in Belarus?

	%
Yes	4,4
No	95,6

If in the near future the elections to the “chamber of representatives” of Belarus took place, would you vote for the candidate of the People’s coalition “5+”?

Filter = question 3 – YES (9 respondents)	%
Yes	11,0
No	22,7
Do not know/Hard to say	55,3
Refused to answer	11,0

Do you know about creation of election European coalition “Free Belarus”?

	%
Yes	11,3
No	88,7

If in the near future the elections to the “chamber of representatives” of Belarus took place, would you vote for a candidate of the European coalition “Free Belarus”?

Filter = question 5 – YES (23 респ.)	%
Yes	47,5
No	17,5
Do not know/Hard to say	35,0
Refused to answer	0,0

The coordinator of the European coalition “Free Belarus”, international coordinator of civil initiative Chater’97 Andrei Sannikov comments on the result of the opinion poll carried out in December by the representatives of one of he leading sociological services.

The result of the December opinion poll has become a good New Year present for the European coalition “Free Belarus”. First of all I would like to emphasize the firm desire of changes in the society. 56 per sent of the populations are against the third term of Lukashenka. If we take into consideration the ‘fear factor’, we can easily speak about 65 per cent of people discontented with the present authorities. It is important to remember preparing for the parliamentary elections next year.

Despite of the fact that the opinion poll was carried out only a month and a half after the European Coalition had been created, the results of the survey prove that the model of union of democratic forces had been chosen right. To begin with, we realized that the Belarusians really support the European choice for their country. And they do not associate achievement of this aim with party unions, but with a more understandable strategy of development for the country. The fact that even today in Minsk the European coalition “Free Belarus” has higher support than the “Five”, is eloquent. In general, as the survey indicates, the candidates of the parties enjoy the minimal support of the society. And people are ready to support independent candidates most eagerly, which proves the effectiveness of the model of the “bloc of personalities” we propose.

In general we can say that the results of the opinion poll are a good starting point for a more active work for promotion of the idea of European choice for Belarus and search of the ways of opposition consolidation on this platform in the next year.