Almost 34% of the respondents of a poll say they will take part in the November 1 presidential elections, but haven’t yet decided who to vote for. 18.6% refused to say who they will vote for, while 6% said they will not cast their ballots, shows a sociological survey commissioned by the association “WatchDog.MD Community” to CBS Research.
“Only two weeks before the elections, we regrettably have over half of the voters who could not say who they would vote for. This is a very high percentage given that the elections are close,” WatchDog.MD expert Valeriu Pașa stated in a news conference at IPN.
If the undecided voters, the electors who do not intend to vote and those who refuse to answer are excluded, 40.7% of the remaining respondents would vote for Igor Dodon, while 31.9% for Maia Sandu. The two are followed by Renato Usatyi (14.5%), Violeta Ivanov (3.8%), Octavian Țîcu (3.5%), Dorin Chirtoacă (2.7%), Andrei Năstase (2.7%) and Tudor Deliu (0.2%). “We should take into account the fact that this survey does not include the votes of the Moldovans abroad and of the citizens who live in the Transnistrian region,” stated Valeriu Pașa.
If snap parliamentary elections are held next Sunday, 35.9% of those surveyed said they will go to vote, but haven’t yet decided who to vote for. The undecided are followed by the respondents who refused to answer – 17.6%. Another 10% said they would not take part in elections. 12.4% said they would vote for the Party of Socialists, 11.4% – for the Party of Action and Solidarity, 3.8% – for Our Party, 2.3% – for the Shor Party. Other parties were mentioned by 1% of the respondents and less.
“What we want to note here is that that the percentage of the undecided voters and of those who didn’t answer is extremely high. We see that practically over half of the citizens eligible to vote are in search of a political option to which they would orient themselves,” stated Valeriu Pașa.
Of the undecided ones, 34% would vote for the PSRM, 31.2% for the PAS, 10.3% for Our Party, 6.3% for the Shor Party. Other parties would garner less than 3% of the vote.
Sociologist Vasile Cantarji said the survey was carried out during October 10-17 and covered a sample of 1,001 persons who were polled over the phone. The margin of sampling error is of 3.1%. This is the second survey of the kind, the first being conducted in May. This way, some of the aspects can be analyzed retrospectively.