Kremlin to stay impregnable for 10-15 years – poll

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com –  Alina Lobzina – Dec. 18, 2012)

After a year of tensions between the Kremlin and opposition-minded citizens not seen for over a decade, Russian society decisively split into three parts, with only a minority ready to push for thorough reforms, a new poll reveals.

The reform efforts of the 20 percent of “wealthy, educated and well-informed” Russians, however, are most likely to prove vain, according to the survey by the Levada Center, since there are currently no resources to create a functional opposition.

It will take 10 to 15 years to see profound changes in the political system, the survey concluded. The only possibility to see them sooner will arise if another wave of the economic crisis strikes the country.

Three Russias

At the same time, the number of the disgruntled is considerably higher, as Russia’s “conservative majority,” which is 45 percent of the whole population, is also unhappy about the way things stand.

These people, from smaller and medium-sized towns of “provincial and industrial Russia,” are employed at state-run organizations and depend on governmental purchases and contracts. Thorough reforms do nothing but frighten them, although the level of their discontent with social policies is pretty high.

About one-third of Russians, living in villages and national republics, are absolutely indifferent toward national policies.

People from the republics of Tuva and Yakutia in Siberia, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in the European part of Russia, and the Russian republics in the Caucasus care more about local issues, Levada Center head Lev Gudkov told Kommersant.