Russians No Longer Tell Apart Georgia’s Leadership, Nation
September 1, 2008
Some 51 percent of the Russians have extended their negative attitude to Georgian leadership to the nation of that country, showed the recent poll of All-Russia’s Center for Public Opinion Studies. Political analysts blame the change on the war for South Ossetia and forecast the attitude to improve once the relations of both states get more or less normal.
The Russians have extended their negative attitude to Georgia’s leadership to the nation in general, showed the poll that All-Russia’s Center for Public Opinion Studies held past weekend to monitor the changes triggered by the five-day clashes of both countries for South Ossetia.
Some 51 percent of respondents said their opinion of the Georgians worsened, while 41 percent said they weren’t affected by that war. Each second Russian (50 percent) said the Russians and the Georgians had more to drift apart, and just 28 percent spotted the uniting common essence between the two nations.
“It looks like Mikheil Saakashvili managed to ruin the attitude of the Russians not only to the Georgian state but also to the Georgians,” concluded Valery Fedorov, who is the general director at Russia’s Center for Public Opinion Studies.
“It is a very alarming sign,” said Boris Makarenko, deputy general director at Political Technologies Center. For the first time, the Russians are negative not about the authorities but rather about one of the CIS nations. The extension of negative attitude from the state to the whole nation is probably temporarily, as it results from the military conflict where Russia is involved, Makarenko pointed out.
Source: Kommersant, September 2008
www.kommersant.com/p1019037/Georgia_Russia_poll/
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