General Director of All-Russia's Center for Public Opinion Studies Valery Fedorov
Photo: Ivan Makeev
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The Nation Is for Openness, Restructure, Control
Most of the Russians stand for the political reform spearheaded by President Dmitry Medvedev, particularly in the portion where Medvedev suggests toughening control and removing mayors from offices, signaled the recent poll of All-Russia’s Center for Public Opinion Studies. The opposition parties speculate that the forthcoming reform isn’t clear to the nation.
It looks like the opposition has good reason to suspect the nation of the lack of knowledge. Some 33 percent of respondents, for instance, are unable to decide on president’s proposal to grant one or two seats to the parties that collected more than 5 percent but didn’t progress to the State Duma.
What’s more, 26 percent can neither approve no disapprove the proposal that exactly the party with the majority in the regional parliament will recommend to the president the candidacy of potential governor. The share of respondents that are at a loss about all ten proposals put forward by Medvedev in his annual message to the Federal Assembly is relatively high (from 21 percent to 33 percent).
Nevertheless, most of respondents approve the president’s plan. The reduction in the number of signatures to be collected by a party to run at elections is the least popular (40 percent of respondents approve it, while 30 percent disapprove it).
As to the most popular initiatives of the president, the third leader is Medvedev’s proposal to authorize local legislators to remove mayors from the office (62 percent approve it and 14 percent disapprove). The proposal, whereby the media will regularly cover activities of all parliament parties, including the opposition, enjoys the support of 68 percent (9 percent disapprove). But the obvious leader is the proposal to demand from government to report to the State Duma – 72 percent of respondents approve this initiative, 7 percent disapprove it and 22 percent have no answer.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 27, 2008
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