9th March, 2018
More than 60 per cent of Russians would back incumbent President Vladimir Putin, who is seeking re-election, if they go to the polling stations on March 18, the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) poll showed on Thursday.
The FOM is a Russian non-governmental organisation conducting social surveys.
The FOM said during the social survey it asked people if they were to take part in the presidential election, which candidate would they vote for.
It, however, got 64 per cent saying they would cast their ballots for Putin.
According to the poll, head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and presidential hopeful Vladimir Zhirinovsky would be supported by 6.6 per cent, while Pavel Grudinin from the Communist Party would gain support of 6.5 per cent of voters.
The FOM specified that presidential hopeful Ksenia Sobchak nominated by the liberal Civil Initiative party would receive 1.2 per cent of votes, Grigory Yavlinsky, the co-founder of the Yabloko Party, would be backed by 0.7 per cent.
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Sergey Baburin from the All-People’s Union party and Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights Boris Titov would each gain 0.2 per cent of votes, while the Communists of Russia party chairman Maxim Suraykin would be backed by 0.1 per cent.
A total of 6.2 per cent of voters said that they would not go to the polls, while 13.3 per cent of Russians found it difficult to answer the question.
The poll was based on the research data of the FOM LLC commissioned by the FOM, and was conducted from March 3 to 4 among 6,000 Russians over 18, living in 207 settlements located in 73 country’s regions.
The research was based on an in-home interview method, with the margin for error being no higher than 2.1 per cent.