Over Half of Minsk Residents Intend to Vote in Local Elections

Table 1. Are you going to vote in the March 2, 2003 local elections?

The December poll showed that over a half of those interviewed are going to go to the polls on March 2, 2003 to elect local soviets (councils). The willingness of Minskers to vote in local elections has been stable during the past year.

The Conservative Christian Party led by Zianon Pazniak urged the Belarusian and international community to boycott the local elections. The appeal, adopted by the party's leadership at the December 14, 2002 meeting, found no support with the Belarusian opposition. The general public is mostly unaware of it at all. The pollsters evaluated a possible response of Minsk residents to the appeal to boycott the local elections.

Table 2. If the opposition calls for boycotting the elections, will you follow its advice?

The majority of Minsk residents interviewed did not support the idea of a boycott. The reaction in the provinces is likely to be even more negative.

Over the last two months, Minskers have changed their mind on the possibility of the election fraud. A relative majority of the respondents (39 percent against 32 percent) said in December that vote results would not be rigged. The Central Election Commission has not changed its methods, so the change in the public's attitude should be attributed to the lack of information about the election campaign and the lack of critical materials about concrete events related to the local elections.

Table 3. Do you think the results of the spring 2003 local elections will be rigged?