Lukashenka said he 'won in all the polls'. But did he really?

"I follow the media closely. Both in Russia, in America, in Europe, and in Belarus. In Belarus, Westerners have conducted sociological studies showing that the Belarusians have unequivocally stated that no Tsikhanouskaya had ever won the election. And they admit that the current president won unequivocally," said Lukashenka at the meeting "on counteraction to the sanctions" on October 7th.

In fact, the elections were followed by various studies. But what do they actually say? 

"Golos: Tsikhanouskaya won. In the first round

Of course, "Golos" does not engage in sociology, but its team does not draw its conclusions "by feeling."

The initiative had data from 1,517 official protocols, and they obtained partial information on votes from 5,696 precincts out of 5,757. In total, about 900 thousand voters shared the information with "Golos", which, with the help of mathematical models, made it possible to scale the data.

Based on the "Golos" calculation models, at least three million people voted for Tsikhanouskaya, i.e. about 56% of voters, taking into account the real turnout. Lukashenka, according to their calculations, received 34%.

This data, obtained through calculations, correlates with sociological data.

German Center: Tsikhanouskaya won

In March 2021, German researchers from ZOiS published the results of the surveys conducted in December 2020. The conclusions of German sociologists are quite unambiguous.

According to ZOiS, about 53% of Belarusians voted for Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Alyaksandr Lukashenka was named by about 18% of respondents. More than 18% refused to answer the question, which means that their votes could go to any of the candidates.

65% of respondents agree with the statement that the results of the elections were rigged.

Chatham House: judging by all appearances, Tsikhanouskaya won

The British Chatham House conducts sociological surveys among urban residents of Belarus and regularly publishes the results. We have spoken with Ryhor Astapenya from the center about their latest work.

In October, the center released the results of the research where the ratings of the Belarusian politicians and the voting data of Belarusians were published. As many as 52.2% of respondents in the survey said they supported Tsikhanouskaya, while 20.6% - Alyaksandr Lukashenka. At the same time, 13.7% refused to answer.

The results of the latest poll do not show who people voted for in 2020; however, they give some idea about how Belarusians supported the authorities: about 39% of them stand for the existing order of things. However, this does not mean that all of them voted for Lukashenka on August 9, 2020. This is important to note. 

Pro-government centers: Lukashenka (of course) wo

Lukashenka's victory in the elections on August 9th was declared based on the results of exit-polls conducted only by the organizations registered in Belarus. Thus, Lukashenka received 79.7% of the vote.

Later on, the results of their work were published by pro-governmental EcooM as well. Although there were no data on the voting, the level of Lukashenka's trust was evaluated as 66.5%. Euroradio wrote about the organizations which conducted the survey.

Euroradio did not find any other studies, especially from the West, which would have confirmed Lukashenka's victory.

What about others?

A month before the election, Henadz Korshunau, then Director of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences, admitted that Lukashenka's rating in the capital was 24%.