Over 40% of the population will not take part in local elections

About 42% of the respondents of a survey will not participate in the elections or have not yet decided on that. These are the results of a pre-election survey conducted by IMAS together with SBS Axa in Chisinau municipality in order to estimate the participation rate of the citizens in the June 3 local polls. The results of the survey were made public on Monday, May 28, Info-Prim Neo reports. Of those 58% of respondents who have firmly decided to participate in the local elections on June 3, nearly 40% said they will vote for Veaceslav Iordan, the candidate on behalf the Party of Communists. Dorin Chirtoaca of the Liberal Party (LP) is the second best rated, with 14%. He is followed by the candidate of the Social Democracy Party, Dumitru Braghis, with 13%; Vladimir Filat of the Democrat Party with 10%; Leonid Bujor of the “Moldova Noastra” Alliance with 5%; and Alexandru Corduneanu of the Christian Democrat People’s Party with 4%. Of those who were decided whom to vote for, 56% said they are interested in the outcomes of the elections, while 15% said that it doesn’t matter who will win the elections. At the same time, 41% of respondents said they will vote for communist councillors, 12% for the Social Democracy Party, 10% for the Liberal Party, 9% for “Moldova Noastra” Alliance and 5% for the Christian Democrat People’s Party. According to IMAS director-executive Paul Acatrinei, only 23% of those who expressed their intention to vote said they will not change their mind on election day. The most determined are the voters of Iordan and Chirtoaca - 80% of the respondents who announced that they will vote for them will not change their option. 60 % of the voters of Braghis declared that they will surely keep their choice. Nevertheless, Paul Acatrinei says that, after the opening of the polling stations, the situation could be completely different from the one showed by the survey, because the young voters usually make up their mind on the very eve of the elections. The group of the undecided voters constitutes a significant potential for the candidates, who can either convince them to vote for them or just to participate in the elections. The survey was conducted on a sample of 1,154 persons with the right to vote, and the margin of error was 2.9%.