Director of the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Research Oleg Makarov at the meeting of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko with the leaders of political parties told how the Belarusian society treats the activities of parties, BelTA correspondent reports.
"Summarizing the results of the dialogue platforms that were held before the referendum on amendments to the Constitution showed three positions of part of the population regarding parties: strengthening the role of constructive political parties, reducing their number and greater representation in parliament," Oleg Makarov said.
The BISR Director noted the low level of confidence in political parties on the part of the population: only a third of respondents trust them. At the same time, this is 14% more than last year. "This is probably due to greater public attention to party building. But, for example, in Kazakhstan today it is 43.7%. Despite the fact that there is a crisis of party building in Kazakhstan now (over the past three months, confidence has decreased by 12%)," the expert added. For comparison, according to Oleg Makarov, almost 70% of respondents trust the Belarusian parliament.
"In addition, only 1.2% of the respondents participate in the activities of political parties. The reasons are the apolitical nature of the population, the caution of the population, weak recognition of parties and the ambiguity of specializations of parties (clear difference between parties from each other), and the lack of understanding by the population of their real functions," the BISR director cited the data.
According to BISR assessment, only 0.5% of the media flow concerns the activities of political parties. The study of the media sphere has shown that the relationship between party building and the electoral process is practically not visible today. Oleg Makarov also noted that the basis of the request of the population is goal-setting – why society needs this or that party.