The Kibalchik Boys And A Military Secret.

• Irina Khalip
• 13.03.2026, 15:11

"Honest sociologists" kept silent for a quarter of a century about what Belarusians have always known.

The former state and now independent sociologists (well, how not to remember Ilfov's Gigienishvili - "a former prince, and now a worker of the East") have finally decided that now it is possible to admit that since 2001 people haven't voted for Lukashenko, and his trust rating since the same times is lower than when he was the director of the state farm. Well, thank you, sociologists, for not taking this great secret with you to the grave.

On the other hand, what do we care? We - ordinary Belarusians who read books and analyze news, who go on business trips and communicate with people - have always known that Lukashenko was the president of Belarus for exactly two years. In November 1996, he destroyed the Constitution, abolished the separation of powers, and became a regular usurper. So, in principle, it was not so important what sociologists and even more so Yermoshina had in their preparations. But still, figures are always interesting, at least as a check for each of us: did I assess the situation correctly all this time? Was I not misrepresenting what I wanted? Was I not succumbing to illusions, was I not losing touch with reality in my own dreams?

It turned out, no. We understood everything correctly. Journalists went on business trips and talked to people. Activists held protests, pickets, flash mobs in different cities and saw the reaction. Politicians met with voters in the regions. Independent trade unions set up representative offices there. Everyone had stereoscopic vision.

We were told that Lukashenko had a high level of support. They made up myths and legends about pensioners, who were supposedly very happy, and rural residents, who watched BT. To understand the mood of pensioners, it was enough to sit at a bus stop waiting for a bus or in a polyclinic in a queue for a district therapist's office and listen to the conversations. As for the villagers, they, of course, voted for Lukashenko, who can argue. Whenever I hear about it, I remember my colleague from Time, who came to Minsk before the elections of 2006. The colleague was looking for a big picture of Lukashenko's voters. He needed at least one person who would vote for Lukashenko and openly say so. He did not find such a person in the city, but he found one in the village. The voter honestly said that she would vote for him: "The brigadier said: "If you, old cunt, don't vote for Lukashenko, you won't get firewood for the winter!"

This is how Lukashenko has been getting his several dozen percent of votes since 2001. But he didn't win anymore. According to the legislation, he had no right to be nominated anywhere, and should have been brought to criminal responsibility, but the phrase "sometimes it's not up to the laws" was only formulated in the recent past, and has been in force as an instruction for officials and law enforcers of any rank since the nineties. So the sociologists didn't give us any new information.

Some independent media refer to the fact that the independent sociological group, which this week presented evidence of the people's distrust of Lukashenko, includes the former director of the Institute of Sociology Gennady Korshunov: they write that he is "an honest sociologist, who resigned in October 2020". And here you are wrong, colleagues. The "honest sociologist" had been working in the system of state sociology since 2001 - the same year, when the first rigged elections were held in Belarus. And in 2006 he became a scientific secretary of the Institute of Sociology. Anyone who can imagine how scientific institutes work under Lukashenka knows that the scientific secretary is responsible for the observance of the party line by the whole scientific staff. And if he was appointed to this position, it means he is trustworthy. Especially in 2006, after the mass protests and tent city in the center of Minsk. He deserved it, in a word. And 25 years of carrying the real picture, putting out the lies needed by the owners - it's, you know, not everyone can do it. It turns out that not only Lukashenko killed the trust of Belarusians in himself, but also sociologists have made Belarusians distrust them with their long years of polished figures.

The result is that the people got used to trust only themselves, and this is the best they could come to.

The only thing left to do is to wait for some "honest Central Election Commissioner" to quit his job, move, create an independent election commission in exile and give the people the real figures, which he has kept in his safe or in his heart for a quarter of a century. Then we will find out, for example, that since 2001 we have had a president-elect Vladimir Goncharik. But then he will also need a residence in Vilnius and Warsaw, guards and servants. And we haven't even gotten to the next election yet. In general, hang in there, Western governments.

Irina Khalip, especially for Charter97.org.