Opinion poll shows that inhabitants of Chisinau lost their trust in future

“The population of Chisinau municipality, although manipulated by the decision-making pyramid, does not believe anymore in the day of tomorrow”. – this is the conclusion of the Center for Information and Study of Public Opinion of Moldova “Socioinform”, which showed to the press on Monday, August 14, an opinion poll regarding the situation in economy, social field and in the transport of Chisinau municipality before the local elections of 2007. According to the opinion poll, the increase in price of natural gas seriously affected the family budget of 42% of questioned persons. Another 41.2% answered that this situation will suddenly increase population’s rate of poverty. 12% consider that the increase is a fair decision, determined by the rules of the market economy, and 6.9% do not have a clear decision related to this issue. 15.6% agree with the increase in price of the tariffs in the public transport, 31 accept the present tariffs with the only condition that they will not change in the future. The majority, 48% say that the increase has a negative impact over their living standards. 33% of the respondents consider that the solution for overcoming internal economic problems is the European integration, 10.2% want Moldova to unite with the Russian Federation, and 9.8% - with Romania. The opinion poll shows that the leader in the “battle” for the City Hall is the interim Mayor Vasile Ursu, for which 47.1% of the questioned persons opted. The following is Eugenia Ostapciuc – CPRM, 10.1% and the liberal Dorin Chirtoaca – 9%. The opinion poll was organized during August 4-12. 1450 persons from Chisinau and its suburbs participated in. At the request of the journalists attending the launching of the poll, the authors failed at offering a clear answer regarding the error percentage, sociological methods used for ensuring veracity of the information, as well as about the beneficiaries of the research. According to the director of the “Socioinform” Center, Ion Batcu, doctor in sociology, the opinion poll was the initiative of the center and aimed at researching the opinion of the population regarding the recent increase in price of the public transport tariffs, natural gas and incomes of the inhabitants of Chisinau municipality. Batcu, is a Member of the Parliament and he financed the research, however he said that he or the colleagues involved in this project did not follow any political interests. The center announced that the cost of the opinion poll constitutes MDL 7 thousand.