Survey in Kabardino-Balkaria: 58% of balkarians are ready to participate in protest actions

Responding to a question on whether “the upcoming State Duma elections in December 2007 are going to have an impact on the situation in the republic and if yes, what impact?” most of those polled (51%) gave negative answer. Significantly less number of respondents (21%) believes that Duma elections will have “positive impact”. Similar number of people considers that consequences of the elections will be “rather negative” (19%) and “negative” (1%). 8% reported difficulties in responding to this question. In general, most people (51%) don’t expect any particular changes in their republic in connection with Duma elections. 21% demonstrate optimistic approach anticipating positive impact of Duma elections while 20% are sure about negative or rather negative consequences of Duma elections.

Respondents’ answers to a question on “which party would you like to vote for during State Duma elections?” demonstrated popularity of Pro-Kremlin “United Russia”, which proved to be much more popular than other political parties. 30% of respondents said they are going to vote for “United Russia”, 12% - for “Yabloko”, 6% - for “Just Russia”, 5% - for KPRF and 3% - for LDPR. It is worth of noting that number of those who are not going to take part in Duma elections in Ingushetia (39%) proved to be much higher than in neighboring Kabardino-Balkaria, where only 16% of respondents indicated they are not going to participate in parliamentary elections. Popularity of pro-Kremlin “United Russia” in Kabardino-Balkaria (43%) proved to be significantly higher than in Ingushetia (30%).

Opinion poll results demonstrated that the local population tends to connect their hopes about possible changes in their republic with presidential elections rather than parliamentary elections. Thus, while 39% think that presidential elections will not have any impact on situation in the republic, 23% expect “positive impact” of the presidential elections” and 14% - “rather positive impact”. 6% believe that presidential elections are going to have negative consequences and 8% - “rather negative impact”. 10% reported difficulties in answering this question.