Interfax: Share of Russians supporting Duma’s independence growing – poll

MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – The number of Russians convinced that the State Duma should make decisions independently of the president’s opinion has exceeded the number of those believing that the Duma should support the president in all of his undertakings for the first time since 2000, the Public Opinion Foundation found based on a poll of 1,500 respondents it conducted in 100 populated areas in 43 regions of Russia on December 14-15.

As many as 43% of the respondents currently believe that the parliamentarians should make decisions independently of the president’s opinion, compared to 32% of such respondents in 2007. Respectively, the share of those holding the opposite view has declined to 41% from 54%.

The last time the number of Russians supporting the Duma’s independence from the president was higher than those believing it should follow the president was in 2000 (44% vs 43%), the Public Opinion Foundation found.

At the present time, 44% of Russians assessed the Duma’s performance as ‘fair’ and 4% others as ‘good’, while 38% are discontented with the parliament and 14% are undecided. The share of basically positive attitudes toward the Duma’s performance has grown by more than 10 percentage points (from 36%), while the share of negative ones has not changed, with the number of those undecided having dropped significantly (to 14% from 25%).

A considerable portion of the respondents – 43% – are convinced that the Duma has not passed a single bill they could approve of lately.

At the same time, 65% of those polled admitted they do not follow the Duma’s performance, and 56% said they do not care about watching TV reports covering the Duma’s work, the poll showed. Asked whether the Duma has any significant effect on the country’s affairs, 34% responded that it has a positive effect, 18% said it does not have any, and 28% said it affects them negatively.

More than half of the respondents – 57% – consider the Duma an essential branch of government without which the country cannot do, while 24% disagree with this.

Asked what bills the Duma has passed lately they could approve of, 12% mentioned the legislation banning smoking at public places, 5% the extension of the maternity capital program, and 3% each the amendment of traffic rules and the toughening of the punishment for driving under the influence.