Government takes over polling agency on eve of elections

MOSCOW -- Not long ago, as the upcoming national election campaign got under way, the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion put out some polling data.

Only 11 percent of the voters, the nation's most respected polling agency found, thought that President Vladimir V. Putin represented the interests of "all Russian people." The opposition Communist Party fared much better: Nearly 40 percent of those polled said it was on the side of ordinary citizens.

It got worse for the government. The data also indicated that the war in the republic of Chechnya -- which Putin has made a cornerstone of his presidency -- was supported by less than one-third of the population.

What to do with such compelling evidence that the voters and the government are not exactly in lock-step? In this case, the government has moved to take over the polling company.

Earlier this month, the Labor Ministry informed Yuri A. Levada, widely considered Russia's top sociologist, that it was replacing the leadership of his independent polling company with a board appointed from government ministries and the presidential administration. Levada and his deputies, the ministry said, would not be part of the new management.

Breaking the mirror

Now the 72-year-old academic, who became famous as a dissident in the 1960s, finds himself resorting to "Snow White," not science, when he tries to explain what happened.

"It is quite natural. The situation in this country is not very good," Levada said in an interview this week. "The ruler ought to know this, and use this in his work. But there are many rulers who like only to have a mirror. And as in a fairy tale out of folklore, it is easier to break the mirror than change the policies."

In itself, the takeover of a single polling company -- at least 50 operate in Russia -- would not ring alarm bells. But the action against the All-Russia Center is seen by some as the latest in a series of measures the Kremlin has taken to quiet opposing voices in the run-up to parliamentary elections in December and presidential balloting in March.

In June, the government took over the country's last remaining independent television channel, TVS, and turned it into an all-sports network. The previous year, TV6, a channel critical of the government, was liquidated by an order of the Russian high court, and in 2001, the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom took over the independently owned NTV.

This summer, prosecutors launched a wide-ranging criminal investigation into the huge private oil company, Yukos, after Chief Executive Mikhail Khodorkovsky gave money to two political parties vying against Putin's United Russia for control of the State Duma, or lower house of Parliament.

No alternative

"This is a predictable and logical development of a regime which from the very beginning defined itself as a regime which would bear no alternative," Dmitri Furman, senior analyst at the Institute of Europe, said of the takeover of the polling outfit. "Their goal is to establish a strong power which can control as much as possible ... mass media, business policies and, finally, opinion polls and sociology."

Government officials have said the new board of directors is similar to joint-stock structures being established in thousands of agencies to make them more accountable. All-Russia, although technically a government agency, receives no public funding, operating with fees paid by corporate clients throughout Russia, as well as Europe and Asia.

Levada said he approached various officials about rumors that his agency was in trouble. "No problems," they told him. "And later, in a whisper, they would say, 'We have been ordered to cut off your head.'"

Other pollsters in Moscow say they haven't been troubled with interference so far.

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report.

"There is not a trace of politics about this conflict ... and there is every sign to believe that the restructuring is just a routine thing," said Yelena I. Bashkirova, president of the Russian Public Opinion and Market Research Service, which conducts social, political and marketing research.

"It is not really clear how the results of opinion polls could influence the political situation in the country," she said.

(Begin optional trim)

Dmitri I. Orlov, deputy director of the Institute of Political Technologies, said he doubted that there were political motives behind the takeover but that the government was probably trying to establish audit control.

"The issue is that the authorities are simply trying to structure the polling business in a proper way," he said.

But Vladimir Shlapentokh, a sociology professor at Michigan State University who helped conduct the first public opinion surveys in the former Soviet Union, said the move was a clear sign of a clampdown.

"For me and for many of my colleagues in Moscow, there's simply no doubt that this is an indication of anti-democratic developments in Russia," he said.

Putin is obsessed with re-election, Shlapentokh said. "Only one thing can legitimize his power, and it's election," the professor said.

"And everything that can remotely endanger his election, his administration is determined to destroy. And an independent public opinion center is incompatible with regulated elections."

(End optional trim)

Levada said he believes many of his sociologists will elect not to work under the new board of directors, in the belief that their work will no longer be independent.

"It seems to me the election campaign is almost a pretext -- a pretext to change something in the political field in this country, and the attack on our center is no more than a small part of the bigger attack," Levada said.

"There have been rumors that I'm not, so to speak, 'in line,'" he said. "But in my mind, I am not a fiance, to be loved by someone. We are independent researchers, working scientifically. Whether we are liked or not liked is a problem of small importance."

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko and Alexei V. Kuznetsov of The Times' Moscow Bureau contributed to this report. 8