Apart from corruption, Russians view their leadership as one of the main factors hobbling the country’s development, a survey published on Saturday by leading opinion pollster VTsIOM said on Friday
According to the poll, 19 percent of the respondents said that the high corruption rate prevents Russia from achieving prosperity, while fourteen percent blame the leadership for the country’s subpar performance.
Other respondents believed it was the economic downturn (six percent) and the harmful foreign influence (six percent) that has caused Russia's development to lag.
The survey reveals that Russians have a rather optimistic outlook, with 16 percent of those polled saying Russia will be one of the world's leading countries by 2020. Fourteen percent say the country will be a prosperous and developed within the next ten years. Another 13 percent expect that bright future to arrive in five years' time.
Only seven percent of respondents expressed pessimism about Russia’s future development. Four percent say the development strategy, so much cherished by the former president and current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, is unlikely to be implemented.
Among the states that Russians want their country to be like are Germany (12 percent), the United States (four percent) and Switzerland (four percent).
Russia was ranked 143rd in Transparency International 2011 corruption index released on December 1, 2011.
The poll, conducted on June 2-3, involved 1,600 residents in 46 Russian regions. The margin of error is 3.4 percentage points.