More than 38% of the respondents of the iData barometer don’t know who they would vote for in the presidential election of this autumn. Also, 5% of those surveyed said they would certainly not vote, while 3.1% didn’t answer this question. The question was open and each respondent could name a candidate they would vote for. Of all politicians, Maia Sandu, who announced that she will run for another presidential term, would poll most of the votes.
“It’s certain that incumbent President Maia Sandu will run and 24.1% would vote for Maia Sandu. However, it’s not clear who else will run. So, another 31 people who were named by the respondents were put into a category that represents the views of 29.7% of all respondents. I want to note that out of those 31, five would not be able to run because of their age – they are younger than 40. Eighteen candidates would garner a maximum of 0.2%, principally being named by one or two respondents each. Seven candidates would accumulate 0.21-0.99% and only six candidates were named by over 1% of the respondents,” Mihai Bologan, executive director of the sociological company Intelligent Data, stated in news conference hosted by IPN.
The respondents were asked whether they were for or against holding a referendum on accession to the EU and the presidential election simultaneously. “There is a lot of controversy on this issue. There are legal aspects, but the opinion of the population is strongly influenced by political preferences. We drew a parallel and it is very clear that the answer to this question depends on the person’s sympathies with a party. We have almost 42% of the population in favor of holding a referendum on EU membership simultaneously with the first round of the presidential election. And we have 46% of people who are against. It is a statistically significant difference between those who are against and those who are in favor. Also, 12% don’t have an opinion on this subject and these are practically those who don’t have a political opinion,” explained the director of iData.
The poll shows that 25.5% of the respondents would vote for the ruling party PAS in the event of parliamentary elections. Almost 14% would vote for PSRM, while 13.2% would vote for the Chance Party. Other parties would not pass the electoral threshold. 11% of the voters would not vote, 18.5% are undecided, while about 2% didn’t answer. Of those who are decided, 37.2% would vote for PAS, 20.3% for PSRM, while 19.2% for PPS.
The participants in the sociopolitical study were also asked about the accession to the EU. “Since we are already talking about the beginning of the process of accession to the European Union and it is expected that we will have a referendum concurrently with the presidential election, the situation regarding the pro-European sentiment is currently stable, positive. Much more citizens, 56.7%, would vote for EU membership right today and just over a third would vote against. 8.9% don’t have an opinion. This means that a referendum on joining the European Union would be a success,” said Mihai Bologan.
According to the barometer, over 39.5% of those questioned believe that things in Moldova follow a right path. 49.5% consider things go wrong. 11% didn’t know how to answer this question. Geographically, the citizens from the central part of the country to the west believe that things go right. Those from Comrat, Edinet, Balti, Soroca, Rascani, Orhei, Criuleni, ATU Gagauzia consider that things follow a wrong path.
The survey was conducted during January 26-30 and covered a sample of 1,011 people from 383 localities. The maximum sampling error is 3%.
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