Believe Ukrainian sociologists

The current political indifference in our society has surprised even sociologists who have been polling public opinion for many years and can forecast, to a certain extent, various popular reactions to domestic and international developments. Data from the latest all-Ukrainian representative survey conducted by SOCIS, together with the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, reveal that this January our compatriots in fact no longer react even to high profile turn of the century political events, such as disappearance of journalist Heorhy Gongadze, the so-called cassette scandal, and the criminal case against former Vice Premier Yuliya Tymoshenko. The ratings of trust in President Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine (13-14%), Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz (6-7%), and former Vice Premier Tymoshenko (5-6%) have been varying within the limits of statistical error for several months. Oddly, January’s picture also has not changed. The same ratings as earlier were shown by state institutions involved in one way or another in the latest developments: the Internal Affairs Ministry, Security Service, Prosecutor General’s Office, and the Cabinet of Ministers. “The only thing that somewhat oversteps the error limits,” sociologist Iryna Bekeshkina, research associate at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, concludes, “is declining trust in Verkhovna Rada and the reduced number of those who fully trust or mistrust the media... This shows,” she continues, “that society is not only distancing itself from but also pushing away politics. People don’t want to hear or know anything about politics.”

Topping the rating list of today’s pressing problems of Ukraine is the financial situation as such (80% of respondents), the closely-related problems of unemployment (29%), food prices and utility rates (37% each), as well as personal and family health (32%). According to Ms. Bekeshkina, material problems are more and more overshadowing public interest in societal events. Moreover, this increasingly diminishes Ukraine’s chances of building a civil society. Over half the population pin their hopes for the improvement of their lives on their own efforts, fewer on the family and other relatives, very few on God, and almost nobody on the authorities. This, in the opinion of Oleksandr Stehny, chief of the SOCIS sociopolitical polling department, means that in the immediate future (six to twelve months) “there will be no social explosion in Ukraine.” No protest or support campaigns, organized by various political forces, will not repeat the Ko s я tunica scenario because society lacks the required potential. It only wants to survive.