Nearly half of Russians think that Russian State Duma, the lower house of Russian Parliament, cuts a poor figure in the country’s political process, a survey revealed on Tuesday.
Only 39 percent of respondents (down 8 percentage points since 2011) said the country could not function normally without the Duma, while 43 percent said the legislature was largely redundant, compared with 32 percent in 2011.
Only 16 percent of respondents said they had positive feelings about the Duma’s work, down 4 percentage points since 2011.
Russian State Duma is notorious for approving a number of controversial bills in recent years, including banning the promotion of non-traditional sexual relationships toward minors, a ban on US adoptions of Russian orphans or a very strict anti-piracy law which now often leads to banning law-abiding websites.
The survey was conducted on November 15-18 by the independent Levada Center pollster with a particiaption of 1,600 respondents across 45 Russian regions.
Author: Julia Alieva