Moscow
Half of Russians think there is no need for a political opposition, the country’s leading pollster said this week. In a poll by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center, 48 percent of respondents said that an opposition was necessary only in a crisis. More than two-thirds said the opposition should never try to take power. Russian analysts said such beliefs help explain why there has been little outcry over President Vladimir Putin’s new election rules, which strongly favor incumbents, or his abolition of gubernatorial elections. Unlike some East European countries, which had democratic interludes between the two world wars, Russia has had little experience with free elections.
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