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United Russia Party not worried by results of public opinion polls

The United Russia Party (UR) lost in a week nine per cent of its potential electors

MOSCOW, November 8 (Itar-Tass) —— The United Russia Party (UR) lost in a week nine per cent of its potential electors. The number of those who approved of the performance of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin on their posts was also reduced. This follows from the results of the latest public opinion poll, conducted by the analytical Levada Centre. UR is skeptical about the publication of those figures.

According to the information of Levada Centre, two weeks ago (on October 21-24) 60 per cent of those, who intend to take part in the voting and who have made up their minds, were going to vote for UR, Kommersant writes. The figure for November 1 was 51 per cent, however. The Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party improved their ratings by 3 per cent each. The growth is not important, considering the fact that the statistical error during public opinion polls is 3.4 per cent. The Just Russia Party (JR) came close to the 7 per cent barrier. If it gets more than 7 per cent of votes at the elections, it will be able again to create its faction in the State Duma. The rating of the Yabloko Party grew to reach 4 per cent. The rating of the Right Cause Party and the Patriots of Russia Party remained on the level close to one pre cent.

If the preferences of the electors do not change by December 4, the same four parties will be represented in the Duma, but the make-up of forces will be changed because of the stand to be assumed by one third of the electors, who have not yet made up their minds whether to take part in the voting and what party to support. On October 20 60 per cent of the polled intended to go to the polling stations, while the figure for November 1 was 55 per cent. According to Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of Levada Centre, this is the reason why the number of those, who show interest in UR, was reduced. He believes, however, that “we should wait for the results of the next public opinion polls, in order to draw far-reaching conclusions about the present trend,” because various factors may influence public opinion on the day a public opinion poll is conducted.

The ruling party does not seem to be worried by the results of the latest public opinion poll of Levada Centre, regarding it as “fluctuation,” Alexei Chesnakov, head of the UR public council for contacts with the mass media and the expert community, told Kommersant. The first reason for it is that even according to those results UR will have no less than 60 per cent of seats in the Duma, and the second reason is that the figures obtained by Levada Centre have never before coincided with the results of the voting.

A scandal broke out over the real rating of UR shortly before the parliamentary elections, The RBK Daily writes. The mass media reported with reference to a closed sociological study, whose results were allegedly submitted to the UR leaders, that public support for UR went down to the all-time lowest level. UR refuted the reports, but the latest available results of sociological studies confirm, that the popularity of UR was really dramatically reduced.

The UR leaders commented skeptically on the publication of that information on Monday. “Any references to so-called closed public opinion polls are misinformation and a propaganda trick,” said Alexei Chesnakov, commenting on the report. According to his information, “the latest public opinion polls show that UR surpasses by far all the opposition parties taken together.”