PCRM benefited most from April 7 protests, one third of population believes

The ruling Party of Communists (PCRM) benefited the most from the April 7 violent protests, considers one third of the respondents of the sociological survey “Vox Populi” that was presented on Wednesday by the Association of Sociologists and Demographers of Moldova. 19.7% of the Moldovans believe that the April 7 events benefited President Vladimir Voronin, and only 13.4% said they were to the advantage of the Liberal Opposition parties, Info-Prim Neo reports. 31.1% of those polled consider that the April protests represented a political action staged by the Opposition parties, while one fourth blame the authorities for them. Only 11.5% of the respondents said the events were organized by young people. 16% did not answer. 43.6% of those questioned said that the protests did not continue because the authorities managed to frighten the young persons and the potential participants in such events. 27.4% said the protests stopped because the society condemned the acts of vandalism and the idea of new protests was discredited. 5.7% of the respondents consider the Opposition and the authorities reached a compromise. Half of the respondents believe that the Moldovans do not obtain sufficient true information about the April 7 protests, while 24% consider that the people are well informed about this. The television is the major source of information for 60% of those surveyed. Asked if the mass protests could be organized under influence from outside, one fourth of the respondents gave an affirmative response, while about 30% gave no answer. 24.5% consider that Romania influenced the holding of the protests, while 12.3% said this about Russia. The survey was carried out between July 1 and 10 and covered a sample of 1,592 respondents from 75 settlements. It was commissioned by the Association of European Election Officials and the Institute for European Integration and Political Science of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. The margin of sampling error is 2.6%.