Russia poll forecast suggests 4 party parliament

MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party will get an overwhelming majority in next month's parliamentary election and three other parties will also win seats, according to poll forecasts released today.

Russia's FOM pollster said its forecasts, based on poll results and respondents' answers to additional questions, gave a clearer picture of voting behaviour on December 2, when Russians vote for a new parliament, than just a straight poll.

FOM said United Russia would get 62 percent of the vote, the Communist party would get 12 per cent, nationalist LDPR would get 9 per cent and the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia would get 7 percent.

''When predicting human behaviour at the polls on election day, the results take into account not only direct answers to the question as to which party they were going to vote, but the answers to additional questions,'' FOM said.

FOM also took into account population trends and likely participation in the election based on previous ballots.

None of Russia's liberal parties would get more than 2-3 per cent of the vote, the forecast showed.

The raw poll data upon which the forecasts were based showed that only the United Russia party and the Communist party would pass the 7 per cent threshold to make it into parliament.

Just over 54 per cent of respondents said they would vote for United Russia, up 1 percent on last week. The Communist party got 8.5 per cent, down a half per cent.

The nationalist LDPR received 6 per cent, down 1 per cent and the pro-Kremlin Fair Russia received 4.5 per cent, down half a percent.

FOM polled 1,500 people on Nov. 10-11. There was a error margin of 3.6 per cent.

Reuters PD RN1952