Former protesters ready to support Putin under certain conditions – VTsIOM

MOSCOW. Dec 6 (Interfax) – The majority of people who attended protests staged by the Russian opposition said they would be ready to support President Vladimir Putin at elections if he agreed to implement some reforms, the director of the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM), Valery Fyodorov, said.

The center’s sociologists drew these conclusions after interviewing those who took part in the Russian opposition’s rallies, Fyodorov said, presenting a report authored by Civil Society Development Foundation head Konstantin Kostin at the Interfax central office on Thursday.

“One of the questions was whether these people would be able to vote for Putin if he ran for some post. There were almost no people who said that they would not vote for him in principle,” he said.

Respondents to the survey said that they would be prepared to support Putin if he managed to resolve problems facing the education system and stepped up the crackdown on corruption: “if he sorted out the problem with kindergartens and corruption in them”, “if he overhauled the education system” and “if he spared the entire European part of Russia of the Caucasus”, he said.

“Furthermore, Putin himself does not cause rejection in anyone. Judging by what people have said, they resent two things: lack of action to tackle problems and the corrupt inner circle who work for their own benefit, ignoring the country’s interests,” Fyodorov said.