#13 - RW 271
Vedomosti
No. 153.
August 27, 2003
PUBLIC OPINION POLLS: POWER IN RUSSIA BELONGS TO OLIGARCHS, BUT NO ONE CARES
By Alexei NIKOLSKY

[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]

Only 15 per cent of the Russians consider that real power in Russia belongs to the president. Such are the findings of a public opinion poll carried out by the Agency for Regional Political Surveys (ARPI). One respondent in three thinks the oligarchs are the masters of life, and one in five it is the mafia. Experts believe that this opinion reflects the class hostility of the population for big capitalists.

ARPI (a division of the polling service ROMIR-Monitoring) carried out the survey in 32 constituent members of the federation among a representative sample of 1,500 people. Asked, "who has power in Russia," most (37 per cent) replied, "big capital, the oligarchs," 19 per cent, "organised crime" and 15 per cent, "the president." Twelve per cent of the respondents expressed the view that power belongs to officials; 5 per cent, to local bodies of authority; 4 per cent, to the State Duma; and 2 per cent, to governors.

According to Mikhail Tarusin, head of the ROMIR-Monitoring socio-political investigation department, the question of who has power has been asked for a third time this year, and all three times the oligarchs ranked first, which points to the permanence of these views in society. In March the oligarchs were described as main power by 34 per cent of those interviewed, and in June by 31 per cent. Second and third places in these surveys were every time shared by the president and organised crime. In March the president and the mafia each had 17 per cent of the replies out of the total, in June 18 per cent and 17 per cent, and in August organised crime forged ahead.

A member of the presidential administration, who asked not to be named, believes that the "people's opinion" is the handiwork of the "Fourth Estate, which has portrayed us and the oligarchs in a somewhat distorted light in the papers, films and books." Who really wields power, says the official, "is perhaps anybody's guess, but that the power of the oligarchs need not be inflated to enormous size, that of the universe, is obvious." Former finance minister Alexander Livshits considers the population's opinion of the oligarchs "inadequate": "I would have changed their [poll] rankings with the president's."

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