| The National Political Forecasting Agency, established
by political scientist Mark Urnov, launched its new publication - a Duma
elections forecast bulletin - on October 7. Having tired of the ratings
wars, Urnov simply bought up opinion poll data on political parties from
Russia's top pollsters and averaged them out.
Only five parties will make it into the Duma. YABLOKO and the Communist
Party (CPRF) are seen as running the cleanest election campaigns, while
the dirtiest campaigns are those of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia
(LDPR), the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS), and the Fatherland bloc.
To find this out, Urnov used the party ratings produced by respected Russian
polling agencies, such as VTsIOM, VTsIOM-A, and ROMIR, plus the help of
some experts and around USD 1,000. That is how much Urnov and his colleagues
from the National Political Forecasting Agency (NAPP) paid for the poll
data.
The NAPP decided to spend some time and money on this area, as it had
perceived some flaws in the opinion polls carried out by the leading agencies.
As an example, Urnov cites data on the approval ratings of United Russia
and the CPRF - which vary widely between polling agencies. To escape the
"ratings wars", Urnov and his colleagues are presenting the averaged and "processed" results
of opinion polls done in August and September.
"Among pollsters, there are providers and interpreters. But we
are parasites, so to speak," says Urnov, offering an ironically self-deprecating
definition of his agency's role.
According to the NAPP, if the Duma elections had been held in September,
the United Russia party would have won the most seats (185), followed
by the CPRF (135 seats). YABLOKO and the LDPR would have won 21 seats
each. The SPS would have won 22 seats. Other parties and independent candidates
would have won 66 seats in single-mandate districts. Based on September
polls, voter turnout would have been 69.2%.
The NAPP says the LDPR is running the strongest campaign, thanks to
the rhetoric of its leader; it rated 4.5 on a 20-point scale in September,
followed by United Russia with 3.2. Both of these parties made substantial
gains in comparison to August (3.1 and 2.7 respectively). Meanwhile, the
Russia's Renaissance party and the Party of Life saw their poor ratings
become even worse: -4.7 and -4.1 respectively.
Urnov says that his agency intends to continue informing potential
voters about party ratings. The next compilation of results will be released
in October. In November, these figures will be published on a weekly basis.
See also:
State Duma elections
2003
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