Just 5% of Russians believe in new government's success

The ROMIR Monitoring research center has conducted a poll to analyze the attitude of Russians to the new Prime Minister and their expectations in connection with the new Cabinet. The respondents were asked the following question: "In your opinion, will the new government be able to successfully carry out necessary economic and social reforms?" The biggest group of the respondents (39 percent) thinks that the government will be able to implement only some insignificant reforms. Twenty-seven percent believe that it will be able to implement serious reforms. Eighteen percent of the respondents are convinced that the Cabinet will be unable to implement any reforms, and 11 percent were undecided. Just 5 percent of the respondents consider that the government will be able to carry out necessary reforms in full.

Another question asked during the poll was as follows: "What is your attitude to new Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov?" Thirty-five percent of the respondents were undecided about this question. Thirty-four percent answered that their attitude was rather positive. Fourteen percent declared their attitude was positive. Twelve percent of the respondents said their attitude was rather negative, and 5 percent declared their attitude was negative.

The poll was conducted on March 11-15, 2004. 1,600 Russians of more than 18 years old, living in both urban and rural areas, were polled.