Paul
Goble
Staunton, December 2 – Russian,
Belarusian and Western media devoted enormous attention to a new poll that
showed 90 percent of Belarusians support the idea of having their country unite
with Russia. But a leading Minsk expert immediately pointed out that there were
many reasons to distrust that finding.
First, Professor Andrey Vardomatsky
says, the poll was supposedly carried out by MGIMO, the Russian foreign
ministry’s training arm but not a place known for its polling, rather than by a
professional pollster. Thus, there is every
reason to view it and dismiss it as propaganda (thinktanks.by/publication/2019/12/02/andrey-vardomatskiy-ya-ne-znayu-takoy-sotsiologicheskoy-organizatsii-kak-mgimo.html).
Second, an examination of the
questions supposedly asked and the methodology employed casts even more doubt
on the figure Moscow has put so much effort into promoting, according to the
head of the Belarussian Analytic Center. Not only did the poll not survey
enough people to allow for a breakdown as presented, but it had other problems.
The way in which the possible
answers were formulate was sufficient unclear that someone responding might
have answered yes to many of them even though the implications of his or her
answer might be enormous. It is very different to say one wants good relations
with a neighbor and wants to be absorbed by it.
One more serious and carefully
designed poll conducted several months ago, Vardamatsky says, fount that 75.6
percent of Belarusians wanted Belarus and Russia to be “independent but
friendly countries with open borders, without visas or tariffs.” Only 15.6
percent said they should be united in one union state.
And third, for such a poll to be
useful, the Minsk sociologist continues, it would have been far better to
compare Belarusian attitudes toward Russia with their attitudes toward the
European Union that ask only about one direction. That would allow one to make
more sense out of answers about relations with either.
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