Independent poll suggests that Lukashenko won March's election with 63.6 percent of vote

2006-04-21 9:25

Minsk, 21 April. A poll taken by a group of independent sociologists suggests that Aleksandr Lukashenko did win March's presidential election in the first round, but by a much smaller margin than the official results show.
According to the survey of 1,496 eligible voters conducted in late March and early April, the incumbent Belarusian leader gained 63.6 percent of the vote in the March 14-19 election, while his main opposition rival, Aleksandr Milinkevich, garnered 20.6 percent. As many as 4.8 percent of the interviewed said they had cast their ballots for another opposition candidate, Aleksandr Kozulin, and 2.1 percent backed Sergei Gaidukevich, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party.
The findings sharply contrast with the official results of the vote that gave Mr. Lukashenko a resounding win with 83 percent, only 6.1 percent to Mr. Milinkevich, 2.2 percent to Dr. Kozulin and 3.5 percent to Mr. Gaidukevich.
Talking to reporters in the British embassy in Minsk on Thursday, sociologist Oleg Manayev, who supervised the survey, said that the poll had found voter turnout in the election to be 90 percent, nearly the same as the rate reported by the central election commission.
At the same time, less than 17 percent of those who cast ballots at the early voting stage said they had done this under compulsion, a finding that contradicts the opposition's allegations that an overwhelming majority of early voters had been forced to come to the polls before the main polling day.
Dr. Manayev stressed that it is the activities of the Belarusian authorities rather than the opposition or some external forces that contribute to a growing discontent in society, as the proportion of Belarusians disgruntled by governmental agencies soared to 36.5 percent last year.
"Certainly, there's a social basis for changes, but Belarusian society's readiness for changes should be neither underestimated as done by the government, nor overestimated, which the opposition does," the expert concluded.