From September 17 to 22, 2002, the Minsk-based Research Institute of Socio-economic and Political Problems polled 1,090 Minsk residents with a view to finding out their attitudes to the city authorities.

Asked to appraise the performance of the Minsk City Council, 58 percent of the respondents gave it a positive assessment, against 42 percent who answered in the negative (see Table 1).