· - ZOiS REPORT - BELARUS AT A CROSSROADS: ATTITUDES ON SOCIAL

The blatant falsification of the election result has been widely documented and is known to most Belarusians.2 The electoral manipulation and the im- mediate violence against the first protesters mobilised hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets. [...] To gain a deeper understanding of the protest movement, our survey explored the defining characteristics and motivations of the protesters, attitudes to- wards the demonstrations, and the broader politicisation of Belarusian so- ciety. [...] The election and the regime’s the protests? How often have you taken part in harsh response to it brought people onto the streets, and the survey dem- the protests? onstrates how quickly people made up their minds about the country’s po- litical situation and whether or not to take part in the protests. [...] This underlines the fact that repression in an age of social media is a risky strategy for an autocratic regime, as the circulation of images of violence may encourage even more people to take to the streets, including the parents and grandparents of the initial injured and arrested protesters. [...] The ZOiS survey confirms the growing unpopularity not only of the president but also of general state power structures that are increasingly associated with The pronounced the head of state: the police, including the OMON / AMAP riot police, the na- distrust of the security tional intelligence agency KGB, and the judicial system.