(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - United Russia (YR) has extended its lead in the Russian Federation’s political scene, according to a poll by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center. 54 per cent of respondents would vote for the pro-Kremlin party in this year’s election to the State Duma, up seven points since late September.

The Communist Party (KPRF) is a distant second with six per cent, followed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) with five per cent, and A Just Russia with three per cent.

Vladimir Putin was elected to a second term as president in March 2004 with 71.31 per cent of all cast ballots. In April 2005, Putin ruled out seeking a new mandate, saying, "I will not change the constitution and in line with the constitution, you cannot run for president three times in a row." The next presidential election is tentatively scheduled for March 2008.

The next election to the State Duma is scheduled for Dec. 2. For the first time, all 450 lawmakers will be chosen through party-list proportional representation, with a seven per cent threshold. In the 2003 election, only four political parties—United Russia, the KPRF, the LDPR and the Motherland - National Patriotic Union (MDRT)—received more than seven per cent of the vote.

On Oct. 1, Putin accepted an offer to lead the United Russia list in the election to the State Duma, and called the possibility of becoming prime minister "entirely realistic."

On Oct. 13, U.S. state secretary Condoleezza Rice discussed Putin’s political future, saying, "There’s a lot of speculation about who’s going to be president, whether Putin is going to take any number of jobs or no job at all. I just think speculating on that is not going to help the situation. (...) I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin."

Polling Data

Which party would you vote for in the election to the State Duma?

Source: All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center
Methodology: Interviews with 1,600 Russian adults, conducted on Oct. 6 and Oct. 7, 2007. Margin of error is 3.4 per cent.

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