On April 19, an opinion poll conducted by the Center for Sociological Research and Marketing “CBS-Research” on behalf of the Community for Advocacy and Public Policy “WatchDog.MD” was made public.
The survey contains a number of questions on people’s political preferences – their level of trust in political leaders and their voting preferences for the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections. The questions put to respondents focus on social and political issues, foreign policy issues and Russian aggression against Ukraine. The survey includes multiple questions that focus on the impact of disinformation and propaganda on public opinion in Moldova. In particular, it shows a still very high impact of Kremlin propaganda on topics such as security, Russian aggression in Ukraine, international relations, etc.
According to the latest survey, the top 3 major concerns of Moldovans are: (1) a war in the area (49.9% of respondents); (2) prices (45.6%); (3) the future of children (35.3%).
The same survey shows that the main source of news from which Moldovans get their information is television (48.2%), followed by Facebook (31.9%). At the same time, more than 51% of respondents get their information online from news websites.
More than 65% of respondents support the President’s initiative to create a specialised court for cases of grand corruption, while 58.7% believe that Maia Sandu should personally go to Moscow to negotiate the price of gas (down almost 5% since March).
We note the increase in support for EU membership (58.8% – up 6.9% since March). The percentage of respondents who are against Moldova joining NATO is also decreasing, although it remains very high (52.6% in April, compared to 55.9% in March). At the same time, 52.21% of respondents believe that the war in Ukraine should be stopped as soon as possible, even at the cost of ceding some territory to Russia.
The survey was conducted in the framework of the project “Assessing the impact of disinformation and toxic propaganda on public opinion in the Republic of Moldova“, implemented by the “WatchDog.MD” Community with the financial support of the European Union through Internews.
The project involves conducting research and 4 opinion polls between January and May 2023 on the impact of disinformation and manipulation and toxic propaganda on public opinion in the Republic of Moldova. At the same time, the “WatchDog.MD” Community will analyse the surveys and, on the basis of each survey, will draw up a set of findings and recommendations addressed to the relevant institutions and actors in order to combat disinformation and propaganda. The CATI (telephone interview moderated by interviewer) survey was conducted by the Centre for Sociological and Marketing Research “CBS-Research” from 4 to 13 April 2023 on a stratified sample of 1115 people aged 18 and over. The sample is representative of the adult population of the Republic of Moldova, with a maximum error of +3.1%. The questionnaire was available in Romanian and Russian and respondents were given the opportunity to choose the appropriate version.
The entire socio-political survey was broadcast live on: www.ipn.md, FB.com/ipn.md, YouTube, privesc.eu.
The study can also be accessed via the active link.
