Novye Izvestia
July 21, 2011
PARLIAMENTARY QUARTET
SOCIOLOGISTS SAY THAT THE SAME FOUR POLITICAL PARTIES WILL MAKE IT TO THE DUMA IN DECEMBER
Author: Nadezhda Krasilova
[Political scientists and experts distrust results of opinion polls.]
Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) Director
General Valery Fyodorov went public with results of the latest
opinion polls. He said that United Russia was to get a majority in
the next Duma again, but absolute majority for a change instead of
constitutional. According to VCIOM sociologists, three other
political parties stand to make it to the Duma come December – the
same CPRF, LDPR, and Fair Russia. In other words, the next Duma
will be no different from the incumbent one.
Had the parliamentary election taken place this Sunday,
United Russia would have polled 58.3%, CPRF 14.7%, LDPR 9.8%, and
Fair Russia 7.3%. Sociologists say that three remaining officially
registered political parties (Yabloko, Right Cause, and Russian
Patriots) will almost certainly fail to scale the barrier. Right
Cause will finish the race with 4.1%, Yabloko will poll 2.8% and
Russian Patriots, 1.9%. All in all, approximately 1.1% bulletins
will be invalidated.
VCIOM sociologists maintain that United Russia and Fair
Russia will fare worse in the forthcoming campaign than they did
in the previous one. The ruling party might end up with 291 seat
on the lower house of the parliament instead of the current 315
and Fair Russia with 37 instead of 38. On the contrary, the CPRF
and LDPR will noticeably strengthen their positions and end up
with 73 (instead of 57) and 49 (instead of 40) seats.
“Fair Russia’s chances to retain a parliamentary faction go
down but chances of the Right Cause definitely improve,” said
Fyodorov. He said, however, that Right Cause was taking too long
and could fail in the time remaining before the election to boost
its rating sufficiently to make it to the Duma.
Results of the opinion poll reported by the Levada-Center the
other day were somewhat different. On the other hand, the question
its sociologists approached respondents with was somewhat
different as well. Levada-Center sociologists set out to gauge
potential electorate of political parties. They discovered that
potential supporters of United Russia numbered 54% (against 60% in
2007). Sociologists gauged potential electorate of the CPRF at 35%
(22% in 2007) and that of the LDPR at 28% (18% four years ago). On
the other hand, the respondents who say that they will never vote
for the LDPR number 60% these days (four years ago they numbered
67%). The number of the respondents determined to vote for Fair
Russia, Yabloko, and Right Cause remained essentially unchanged
(within the statistical error).
Experts tend to take sociologists’ forecasts with a certain
rain of salt. Political scientist Andrei Piontkovsky said that he
trusted the Levada-Center more than he did the VCIOM. “This latter
undervalues the CPRF and its chances which is wrong I think
considering the protests brewing within society,” said
Piontkovsky. “Both sociological services report Fair Russia
balancing on the verge, which means that it might actually fail to
make it to the Duma. After all, Fair Russia will have to do
without the administrative resource this time. United Russia is in
trouble, so that the powers-that-be will focus all of the
administrative resource on it. Besides, there is the Right Cause
party to consider. Its rating keeps growing and will keep on
growing yet. I reckon that Fair Russia will be brought down and
Right Cause elevated.”
Alexander Kynev of the Information Policy Development
Foundation said that he trusted no sociologists at all. “Whatever
they report nowadays, they report on orders,” said Kynev. “That’s
an element of official propaganda. We lack trustworthy
sociological services in Russia.”
[return to Contents]
#5
Moscow Times
July 21, 2011
Survey: United Russia Losing Support
By Natalya Krainova
Support for the Communists and the Liberal Democratic Party is growing at the expense of United Russia and A Just Russia, but the State Duma elections in December shouldn’t shatter the current four-party configuration dominated by United Russia, according to a survey released Wednesday.
Unlike regular surveys, the forecast by state-run VTsIOM pollster combines a population poll with prognoses by 13 political analysts and sociologists.
If the elections were held this month, United Russia would win 58.3 percent of the vote, down from almost 63 percent last November, VTsIOM said.
The Communist Party increased its support from about 12 percent to 14.7 percent over the period. The Liberal Democratic Party also boosted its ratings from 6.9 percent to 9.8 percent, while A Just Russia is teetering on the brink of the 7 percent threshold with 7.3 percent, down from 8.9 percent in November.
None of the country’s other three registered parties would have won seats. The Patriots of Russia would get 1.9 percent, Yabloko 2.8 percent, and the revamped Right Cause 4.1 percent, admittedly up from 2.6 percent in November.
The poll, held in June, covered 1,600 people and had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. VTsIOM did not identify the 13 analysts questioned for the survey.
The pro-business Right Cause party is the wild card of the election season, with its new leader, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, promising to make it the second-biggest faction in the next Duma.
But the party “will not succeed by using liberal ideology,” Sergei Mikheyev, head of the Center of Political Conjuncture of Russia, said at a news conference organized by VTsIOM to unveil the survey.
VTsIOM head Valery Fyodorov called Right Cause’s electioneering a personal advertising campaign for Prokhorov, who made headlines in 2007 when he was detained and later cleared during a prostitution investigation at the French resort of Courchevel. Prokhorov also angered unions by proposing a 60-hour work week last year.
“Most Russians know Prokhorov from the scandal at Courchevel and the proposal to introduce the 60-hour work week,” Mikheyev said.
Fyodorov said it was “a big question whether Prokhorov would change so much to attract more voters in the remaining time.”
As for the other parties, A Just Russia suffered from the recent dismissal of its leader Sergei Mironov as the Federation Council speaker, Fyodorov said. In addition, the party has been “deprived of a key object for criticism” after St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko agreed to trade her job for Mironov’s speaker seat, he said.
The Liberal Democratic Party’s rating is growing because of a rise in nationalistic moods that the party has tried to cater to recently, Fyodorov said.
The Communist Party has a permanent electoral base of about 18 percent, but part of its supporters mobilize only on the eve of elections, which spells more gains for the party as December draws near, Mikheyev said.
Moreover, some Communist voters who swung toward A Just Russia, created in 2006 as a pro-Kremlin alternative to the Communists, at the last Duma elections, will come back, Mikheyev said.
As for United Russia, Mikheyev blamed its slipping popularity on a “number of recent technological catastrophes.” He did not elaborate, but recent incidents include plane crashes in Petrozavodsk last month and the Tomsk region in early July, which killed a total of 54, and the sinking of the cruise ship Bulgaria last week, killing a presumed 129.
Meanwhile, United Russia and its new electoral ally, the All-Russia People’s Front, finished accepting nominations for joint primaries Wednesday. Campaigning was to start Thursday and proceed parallel to the primaries, which are to wrap up by Aug. 25, the party said on its web site.
United Russia is to reserve 150 of the 600 seats on its party list for members of the front, created by its leader, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, to give broader representation in the Duma to nonpolitical groups.
First Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov has agreed to head United Russia’s party list in the Volgograd region in the Duma elections, the party’s web site said Wednesday.
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