Putin Wins “Election”
MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s party won more than 60 percent of the vote in Russia’s parliamentary election Sunday, exit polls said.
United Russia was leading the field with 61 percent of the vote, with the Communists trailing far behind with 11.5 percent, according to the poll conducted by the state-owned All-Russia Opinion Research Center.
Two other pro-Kremlin parties — Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s Liberal Democratic Party and Just Russia — also made it into parliament with 8.8 and 8.4 percent of the vote, respectively. The nationwide poll was commissioned by the state-controlled Channel One television.
Pollsters said United Russia’s performance would give it a crushing majority of 306 seats in the 450-seat lower house, the State Duma.
Zhirinovsky’s party and Just Russia, which are expected to act at the Kremlin’s behest, would have 45 and 42 seats respectively.
The Communists, the only opposition force, will have 57 seats, said the poll which was based on face-to-face interviews with voters at 1,200 precincts across Russia. The margin of error was no more than 2 percentage points.
Another nationwide poll, conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation — technically independent but considered Kremlin-friendly — showed United Russia winning with 62.3 percent of the vote.
It had the Communists coming in second with 11.8 percent, and Zhirinovsky’s party and Just Russia trailing behind with 8.4 and 8.3 percent, respectively.
The survey polled about 80,000 respondents and had a margin of error of 1 percentage point.
Both polls were based on anonymous face-to-face interviews. This method is usually considered less trustworthy than anonymous questionnaires because people may be reluctant to state their true preferences knowing they can be identified. The polls can be expected to overstate the support for United Russia.
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Is anyone really surprised comrades? Chavez will win also. The resurgence of People’s States in vogue.
December 2nd, 2007 at 11:53 amwell its official, the USSR is back if it ever really did leave.
December 2nd, 2007 at 12:18 pmRussians like to get such leaders, otherwise they don’t know who they are
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:14 pm