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Gazeta.Ru
March 30, 2004
Putin's victory seen as unfair, scary

Vladimir Putin’s landslide victory in the presidential election was not fair believe as many as one-third of those polled by Yuri Levada’s centre for public opinion studies on 18-23 March.

Nonetheless, more than half the respondents ­ 54 per cent ­ believe that the presidential election campaign was honest or quite honest.

However, the percentage of those sharing the opposite point of view is also high. The battle for the presidency was either not very fair or downright unfair, claim 30 per cent of the respondents. 16 per cent were undecided.

The respondents were not asked to elaborate on any specific cases of electoral violations, but, it seems, based their conclusions on the harsh criticism of Putin by his rivals and independent observers like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which cited the unlimited use of state-run television networks by the Kremlin for campaigning purposes and denying the other candidates equal access to the media.

However, Putin’s victory four years ago was considered to be even less fair. Only 45 per cent of those polled after the 2000 election said they considered that campaign to have been held fairly, while 37 per cent said it was unfair.

The increase in the number of Russians who believe that Putin won the presidency fairly the second time round is by no means a reflection of the new electoral laws or the authorities’ efforts to cut down on the use of so-called dirty PR techniques, hailed by political analysts.

As a rule, the number of people who praise a campaign directly depends on their own preferences. In other words, the more voters that cast their ballots for the winner, the less the number of those unsatisfied with the campaign.

Back in 1996 when the then-incumbent Boris Yeltsin, not without some difficulty, defeated Gennady Zyuganov in a run-off, only 50 per cent of the respondents said they were pleased with the outcome, whereas 37 per cent said they were unsatisfied.

In 2000 when Putin scored nearly 53 per cent of the votes, 62 per cent of Russians hailed the outcome; 28 per cent were not satisfied with the results.

In 2004 the share of those pleased with the results increased to 74 per cent, with Putin having scored 71 per cent. 19 per cent said they were not pleased.

Public opinion experts have established yet another important tendency: as compared to 2000 the share of those who showed no interest in the election results whatsoever has increased. Four years ago 43 per cent of respondents said they did not care about the outcome of the elections. This year as many as 49 per cent said so.

At the same time, another half did feel certain emotions in connection with Putin’s victory: 36 per cent (versus 31 per cent in 2000) said they were pleased with his win; seven per cent (versus 6 per cent) felt joy; six per cent (14 per cent) expressed alarm and one per cent (3 per cent) even felt fear. One per cent remained undecided.