Pollster: More than half of Russians plan to vote for Putin
More than half of Russians plan to vote for Vladimir Putin.
AP
Vladimir Putin’s electoral rating has risen by seven percentage points in a month while ratings of the other presidential candidates have not changed, according to the VTSIOM pollster.
Fifty-two percent of respondents polled recently said they would vote for United Russia party nominee Vladimir Putin were the presidential elections to be held next Sunday.
Putin’s electoral rating was 45% in mid-December 2011, according to VTSIOM.
The other presidential candidates have retained their stable ratings but are far behind the prime minister.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov may count on the support of 11% of citizens (compared to 9% in mid-December), Liberal-Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky 9%, as a month ago, A Just Russia party leader Sergei Mironov 4% (5%), a founder of the Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinsky 1% (2%) and self-nominee, businessman Mikhail Prokhorov 2% (3%).
Presidential candidates Dmitry Mezentsev, who is the Irkutsk regional governor, and Samara public figure Svetlana Peunova have not scored any points at all.
Ten percent of those polled said they will not vote.
The poll was conducted on Jan. 14-15 in 153 populated areas of 46 regions, and involved 1,600 respondents. The margin of error was within 3.4%.
The officially registered presidential candidates are Putin, Zhirinovsky. Zyuganov and Mironov.
Prokhorov, Mezentsev and Yavlinsky submitted lists of 2 million supporters’ signatures each to the Central Election Commission on Wednesday.
Peunova has collected just over 300,000 signatures and she is losing the chance to be registered.
The final list of presidential candidates will be announced on Jan. 29 after the voter lists filed have been verified. The verification procedure will be broadcast on the Internet.