People need new heroes

The sociological survey “Governmental and Economic Crisis in the Public Opinion of Ukraine” conducted by Research & Branding Group experts Jan. 20–30, 2009, showed an irrefutable fact: there are far more “minuses” and unwelcome trends. This country’s residents regard the beginning of 2009 as the most alarming period in the past three years. People are increasingly dissatisfied with life, all the leading politicians and statesmen of Ukraine have a negative rating, about 71 percent of Ukrainians say the crisis has severely hit them, and about a third of people in all the regions are ready to take part in protest actions. This is just a fraction of the results of this nationwide survey.

The results of the polls conducted in October 2008 and January 2009 display a tendency towards an increase in the number of Ukrainians who are ready to vote for new political projects.

From October 2008 to January 2009, Ukrainian society showed a clear need for new political entities. Forty-nine percent of this country’s residents expressed their readiness to vote for new political parties in the parliamentary elections. This figure is higher in Western Ukraine (54 percent) than in the center (45 percent), while in the south and east it is the same as throughout the country (49 percent). It is important that in the west this need is more expressed in readiness to vote for concrete parties and blocs than in other parts of the country. The west is most of all interested in seeing new forces coming to power, says Yevhen Kopatko, a sociologist at Research & Branding Group.

Experts believe that if this trend continues, there will be serious changes, if not surprises, in parliament in the next parliamentary elections. They also say that the public mood is very volatile in this country due to the crisis and instability, and political leanings depend on how the Ukrainians feel at the moment. So it will take another month or two for the tendency to become clearer.

Most of the Ukrainians link the coming to power of young progressive forces with the former Verkhovna Rada speaker Arsenii Yatseniuk. Other political projects stand good chances, too, if their leaders prove their willingness to work for the benefit of Ukraine and conduct an adequate election campaign. As for Yatseniuk, even now 11 percent of Ukrainians would cast their votes for him in the presidential elections if they were held next Sunday. In this case, 21 and 17.7 percent of Ukrainians would be voting for Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko, respectively, while Viktor Yushchenko would poll 2.3 percent of the votes. Interestingly, the number of people who are taking an extremely negative attitude to politicians is now high as never before — 32 percent. Out of these, 16.6 percent would vote against all parties in the parliamentary elections, 10.4 percent would not turn out at all, and 11 percent are hesitating.

UKRAINIANS WANT AN “IRON FIST”

Compared to October, the percentage of those who do not think the crisis has affected them has dropped from 10 to 5 points. The hardest-hit people live in Southern and Eastern Ukraine (80 percent), while the situation is slightly better in the west (66.5 percent).

“This may be explained by the specifics of regions: the industrial east is mostly populated with the working class that has been adversely affected by the industrial slump, while the west is an agricultural region with a lot of private farms”, Kopatko says.

The survey shows that more than half of Ukrainians (54 percent) think that Ukraine is only entering the crisis. The number of people who believe that this country is at the peak of the crisis is now 34.7 percent, up 10 percent on last October. Seventy-two percent of Ukrainians have already felt the impact of the crisis on their own life and activities. What is more, the number of these is increasing from 59 percent in the west to 78 percent in the south-east. The crisis indications are practically the same in all the regions: price hikes for foodstuffs and services (91 percent), reduced incomes of family members (51 percent), refusal from some goods and services (32 percent), back wages, pensions and scholarships, etc. (31 percent). Ten percent of Ukrainians have been laid off, 19 percent have an incomplete working day, and 30 percent have experienced wage cuts.

The researchers also asked the people what they are doing and intend to do in the conditions of crisis. Incidentally, the share of Ukrainians who are aware that their previous incomes will not suffice and they will have to take a second job is now 31 percent, up 7 percent on the beginning of this year.

“If you look at the answers to the question ‘What are you prepared to do to improve your living standards,’ 18 percent are prepared to change jobs, 14 percent their profession, 7 percent their country of residence, and the same number — their place of residence in Ukraine. This means that people adhere to the principle ‘the grass is always greener on the other side.’ This is not really good”, the independent expert Oleksandr Narbut says convincingly, “because nobody wants to change: only 4 to 6 percent of our citizens are prepared to master computer skills or a foreign language or start their own business”.

The sociologists believe that domestic instability, dwindling living standards, and the fear of the future have prompted 80 percent of the respondents to believe that Ukraine needs an “iron fist”. Accordingly, 36 percent are prepared to accept restrictions on their freedom of speech, expression, and religion.

“The situation is special in that we see the people’s level of trust in the state has plummeted. In terms of the stereotypes of mass consciousness, this is reduced paternalism. This condition, when the state does not help and people have to fight for survival, creates a demand for an “iron fist.” This threat is obvious, not just possible”, says Andrii Yermolaiev, director of the Sophia Center of Social Research. “Politics need illustrious personalities and, besides, we are experiencing a deep crisis of legal culture, when written laws are no longer working and unwritten laws are taking over in the area of regularizing relationships in society. This forms a demand for a counter-elite that would be able to change the living conditions”.

The scholars note that the number of people who would prefer an “iron fist” is almost the same in all regions.

DISCONTENT WITH LIFE AND PROTEST ATTITUDES

“We can clearly see an increase in social tension, and it is likely to escalate. If the current political elite makes no resolute and concerted efforts in this field, the situation may spin out of control”, Konopatko warns. The sociologist cites the following figures: 28 percent of Ukrainians are now ready to sign all kinds of petitions and demands, 26 percent, take part in rallies and demonstrations, and 13 percent, go on strike. The main precondition for a third of them would be a situation in which they run out of the means of subsistence, while 17 percent would do it when a new leader emerges.

“There is the danger of public separatism, when the instinct of self-preservation will prompt people to establish self-contained systems of survival. While blaming everything on the state, people will be pinning hopes on this kind of survival systems, as was the case at the turn of this millennium”, Yermolaiev says.

He thinks that the number of Ukrainians who are prepared to take radical steps is already very large.

“As far as the dynamics of social processes is concerned, I think there can be two stages. The first is when social tension is on the rise: people will see that there are more and more problems (dismissals, wage cuts, banking problems, etc.). This dynamics will last throughout the spring. And, depending on how the government is tackling the problems and on the nature of threats, people may begin to bring their local social groups together, which will cause organized social actions. Roughly speaking, the social groups will begin to fight with the government as the source of their problems. This threat may really emerge in the fall of this year: people will lose their savings, jobs, and wages, while the self-contained system of survival will not live up to expectations. Ukrainian will be not only rising but also taking revenge”, Yermolaiev adds.

In the researchers’ view, the main thing is what lessons the current elite will learn from this information: whether it will finally unite or work toward self-destruction. It is dangerous to ignore this kind of public sentiment. The sociologists say that time has been lost in any case: “Now we can only speak about relative control of this process”.