Russians Increasingly Support Opposition Protests, Poll Says
Russians increasingly support opposition protests and are more likely to attend anti-government demonstrations, according to a poll released Wednesday.
The independent Levada Center pollster found that 42 percent of respondents backed protest activity in July, as opposed to 32 percent in March, according to survey results published on its website.
Of the 42 percent who backed opposition protests, 11 percent said they firmly supported them, while 31 percent said they largely backed them, the same data showed.
July's figure fell just short of the result recorded in December 2011 (44 percent), when the political opposition kicked off the For Fair Elections protest movement with a major demonstration on Bolotnaya Ploshchad.
The Levada Center survey also showed a growing desire among Russians to take part in demonstrations against electoral fraud. Between June and July, this indicator rose from 14 percent to 19 percent.
Five percent said they would definitely attend such protests, the highest figure seen in the poll conducted monthly since December.
Levada Center interviewed roughly 1,600 respondents in 45 regions for the survey, which had a margin of error not greater than 3.4 percent.
