MOSCOW, February 21, 2008 Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents information on what problems Russians think the next President should solve in the first place and who of the presidential contenders they suppose could cope with these problems best of all. Russians indicate that the principal axes of the next president’s political and economic line should focus on increasing the nation’s welfare, struggle against poverty (as 19% identify); cutting down the inflation rate (18%); improving the quality of public health services, education, social development (14%). The second place belongs to economic development, development of high tech and power engineering (10%); fight against corruption (10%); strengthening Russia's international situation (7%); and also increase of pensions (7%); solving the unemployment problem (6%), developing agriculture (6%). Strengthening Russia’s armed forces, fight against crime, solving the housing issue, revival of science and culture, strengthening the democratic freedoms, etc. are mentioned more rarely (1-3% for each option). As far as solving the problems that the country faces is concerned, the respondents also first of all specify the importance of increasing the level of income that the population currently has (even though the topicality of this problem has decreased during the last year: if 44-45% of respondents spoke about it in the spring and summer 2007, then in February 2008 fewer than 38% did). The second place in the list of priority problems is occupied by cutting down the inflation rate, thus, this issue has become more topical: 12-14% of respondents would mention it in the first half of 2007, now this index is more than twice as high (27%). The corruption issue stays quite urgent (10-12% of respondents keep mentioning it). Whereas, the unemployment problem has lost its acuteness (it was mentioned by 13% of respondents only a year ago, now this index only totals 8%). D. Medvedev would be able to better than other contenders cope with the problems that have to do with economics and workplaces (as 53% of respondents believe), foreign affairs (54%), terror (46%) and corruption (45%). V. Zhirinovsky occupies the second place in his ability to solve problems: 12% of respondents for each option consider that he can fight terror and corruption better than other contenders, 6% for each option believe that he would also do better than others when solving the problems of economy and foreign affairs. G. Zyuganov is on the third place of the rating (6-9% of respondents trust him to be the best in this or that area). 1% of respondents assume that A. Bogdanov is capable of solving the problems better than other contenders. The younger the respondents are, the more they believe that D. Medvedev and V. Zhirinovsky (lagging far behind) are the ones to effectively solve the problems that our country is facing, and the less they trust in that G. Zyuganov is the one able to do that. The initiative all-Russia opinion poll was conducted by VCIOM on February  16-17, 2008. 1600 respondents were interviewed in 153 population areas of 46 regions of Russia. The statistical error does not exceed 3.4%    

* This question was not part of the survey in the spring or summer