#8 - RW 287
RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly
Vol. 3, No. 50, 18 December 2003
POLLSTERS TRY TO EXPLAIN THE ELECTION RESULTS
By Julie A. Corwin
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

A key reason that the results of the 7 December State Duma election caught so many people by surprise was that leading Russian pollsters such as VTsIOM, VTsIOM-A, and FOM failed to predict such strong shows of support for Vladimir Zhirinovskii's Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and Sergei Glazev's Motherland-Patriotic Union bloc.

Polls published in the run-up to the vote actually forecast that Motherland would fail to gain the 5 percent of the vote necessary to be allocated proportional-representation seats.

Only a late-November VTsIOM poll conducted in three cities gave a hint that the Communists would lose by such a large margin. It showed 32.7 percent for Kremlin-backed Unified Russia and 14.3 percent for the Communists, which was close to the actual result of 37.09 percent for Unified Russia and 12.6 percent for the Communists. However, that poll showed both Yabloko and the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) with more than 5 percent support.

However, VTsIOM-A conducted a poll a week before the election that more closely anticipated the election's actual results, but which could not be published prior to the vote because of Russian election law. In an interview in "Kommersant-Vlast," No. 49, VTsIOM-A polling agency Director Yurii Levada said the poll showed a spurt in support for Motherland, a drop in support for the Communist Party, and a decline in the ratings of the rightist parties Yabloko and the SPS to below 4 percent.

Levada attributed the rebirth of the LDPR to Zhirinovskii, whom he called "the most talented actor on the political scene," and his successful strategy of wooing the "protest electorate." Motherland succeeded primarily by taking voters away from the Communist Party using the methods of Zhirinovskii, Levada said. Levada attributed the failure of Yabloko and the SPS to enter the Duma to their inability to unite in the last months of the campaign.

Exit polls conducted by ROMIR also provide some insight into why some parties failed to live up to widely held expectations. According to voter profiles complied by the agency, the Communist Party did not win the support of the countryside as was predicted, "Vedomosti" reported on 15 December. Unified Russia was most popular with rural residents, with 38.6 percent of that segment of the population supporting the pro-Kremlin party. Unified Russia also had strong support among the military and people with no education beyond high school -- more than 35 percent of the latter backed the pro-Kremlin party. Forty percent of military personnel voted for Unified Russia, ROMIR found.

Motherland won support at the expense of the Communist Party and Yabloko. Pensioners were the Communist Party's main support base in this election, although Motherland managed to woo some of these voters away. Motherland polled 10.8 percent among voters older than 60 and 10.9 percent among voters 45-59.

Motherland was also successful among voters with higher education, with 10.7 percent of these voters supporting the bloc. Mikhail Vinogradov of the commercial firm Propaganda told "Vedomosti" that Motherland's leaders counted on "people with intellectual pretensions." It fought for these voters against Yabloko and won, he said.