Fewer Russians Ready to Re-Elect Putin, Poll Shows

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 28, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s rating has fallen for the first time this year, with a substantial drop in the number of those who say they are ready to re-elect him, a poll by the Levada Center showed Tuesday.

While a poll in August showed 57 percent of respondents would vote for Putin if he were to run for re-election, a new poll conducted from Sept. 26-29 revealed that only 49 percent would support him.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday shrugged off the rating change, saying in comments to the TASS news agency that “ratings are not a constant, they’re numbers that are inclined to fluctuate.”

According to Levada, Putin’s rating had been steadily climbing since January, when it stood at 29 percent. The president’s rating had ballooned after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March and throughout the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, despite several rounds of sanctions imposed on Russia by the European Union and U.S. in connection with those events.

Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of Levada Center, agreed with Peskov’s statement, saying in comments to online news site Lenta.ru that political ratings rarely stay at their peak.

The Levada Center’s poll was conducted among 1,630 people in 134 cities of Russia. The margin of error was no higher than 3.4 percent.

[featured image is file photo]