Over 60 percent of Muscovites approve of Putin – poll

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyana – July 30, 2013) When asked to rate President Vladimir Putin’s work as good or bad, over 60 percent of Muscovites gave a positive answer, a recent poll says.

When asked who they would vote for in a hypothetical presidential election this week, 54 percent of Muscovites said they would vote for Putin, according to the survey, conducted by the Foundation for Public Opinion between July 12-23. That figure is up from 53 percent in June, according to figures published on the Foundation’s website.

The poll comes just as the campaign for mayoral elections in Moscow on September 8 is in full swing, with Acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin up against five contenders: anti-corruption blogger turned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, of the liberal Parnas party; Nikolai Levichev, of the left-leaning Just Russia party; Mikhail Degtyaryov, of the nationalist LDRP; Sergei Mitrokhin, of the liberal Yabloko party; and Ivan Melnikov, of the Communist Party.

According to the same poll, 61 percent of Muscovites viewed Sobyanin favorably, while 10 percent viewed Navalny favorably.

Suspense was added to the September 8 election after Navalny, a critic of Putin and the ruling United Russia party, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony on embezzlement charges. Navalny, who says the charges are politically motivated, was released pending appeal. He can run for mayor as long as his sentence has not gone into effect. If his conviction is upheld following the appeals process, he will not be able to run for or hold public office unless he is cleared.