Interfax: Fifty-five percent of Russians want to see Putin as their president after 2018 – poll

(Interfax – January 15, 2015) Fifty-five percent of Russian citizens recently interviewed by the Levada Center said they would like to see Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president after the 2018 elections, as compared with 32 percent in March 2014 and 26 percent in 2013, the center’s sociologists told Interfax.

Ten percent of respondents said they would not be opposed to another person becoming Russia’s next president if he continued Putin’s policies (22 percent in March 2014 and 14 percent in 2013), the sociologists said.

At the same time, 18 percent of those polled believe that in 2018, Russia’s new president should become a “person who would offer alternative solutions to problems facing Russia” (22 percent in March 2014 and 41 percent in 2013), and 7 percent of respondents were unable to answer this question.

Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that there is no person in Russia today who would be able to replace Putin as the country’s president (31 percent in December 2013), and another 24 percent of those polled think that such a person could be found, should it prove necessary (40 percent in December 2013).

Ten percent of respondents believe that a political figure who would be able to replace Putin can be named even today (12 percent in December 2013). Thirteen percent of those polled were undecided.

The survey was conducted in 46 Russian regions on December 19-22, 2014 and involved 1,600 people. The margin of error was 3.4 percent.