Page 21 - RusRPTMay20

2.10 ​Putin & government’s popularity
Putin’s approval stands at 65,1% (68,6% the week before), while United Russia’s ratings fell from 36% to 34,4%.​ PM Mishustin’s approval rose from 26% in late March to 41% on April 12 (50% of respondents had no opinion of the Prime minister), according to two recent polls released by the state-owned VTsIOM group as well as the FOM agency.
Following his first 100 days in office, just 38.3% of Russians approve of PM Mikhail Mishustin’s work​. This doesn’t look great when compared to the ratings of his predecessor. When Russia’s notoriously unpopular former PM Dmitry Medvedev left office, 38.9% of Russians approved of his work. In Mishustin’s favor, however, are his anti-ratings, which remain lower than Medvedev’s. Whereas 56.1% of Russians did not trust Medvedev by the end of his premiership, just 23.6% distrust Mishustin today. The head of VTsIOM, the pollster that conducted the survey, says that Mishustin’s ratings are an “accident.” They are trending upwards, he claims, as Russians associate him with “hope.”
Trust levels in Putin, according to an open-ended survey which requires respondents to name politicians without a prompted list, have fallen to an all-time low at just 28%. ​A decline in Putin’s trust rating is also observed in close-ended surveys, which allow participants to select whom they trust from a list of politicians. Whereas in May 2019, 72.3% of Russians said they trusted Putin in the closed survey, in March 2020, trust levels fell to 67%. Levada Center data corroborate VTsIOM’s findings: from February to March 2020, Putin’s approval ratings dropped from 69% to 63%.
21​ RUSSIA Country Report​ May 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com