Clarification

On December 27, 2007, Vremya Novostey published an article entitled “The Five Men’s Campaign.” The material reported that Boris Nemtsov, a nominee of the Union of Right Forces, withdrew his candidacy for the presidential election in favor of ex-Prime Minister and leader of the Russian People's Democratic Union Mikhail Kasyanov. At the same time, it was indicated that “according to the latest data from the Levada Center, if the presidential elections were held next Sunday, about 1% of voters would be ready to vote for Boris Nemtsov (for Mr. Kasyanov - 2%).”

In accordance with the requirements of the Central Election Commission for the publication of the results of public opinion polls during the election campaign, we clarify that when writing the material, we used data from a Levada Center study conducted on December 21-24, 2007 using home interviews among 1,600 respondents (representative sample for the adult population of Russia) in 128 settlements in 46 regions of the country. The statistical error of the study does not exceed 3%. When conducting a closed survey (with answer options), 2% expressed a desire to vote for Mikhail Kasyanov, and less than 1% of the total number of respondents planning to take part in the elections expressed a desire to vote for Boris Nemtsov. During an open poll (without answer options), less than 1% spoke in favor of Mr. Kasyanov’s candidacy; Mr. Nemtsov’s name was not mentioned.

The editors of Vremya Novostei regret that in preparing the above material, the standard requirements for publishing the results of sociological research were unfortunately not met.