Page 15 - RusRPTJul19

in October–December 2018, while the share of negative estimates went down to 45% from 46%, and the share of neutral estimates rose to 43% from 42%. The number of people who expect economic improvement in the next 12 months rose to 11% from 10%, while the share of people that see negative dynamics in the Russian economy decreased to 23% from 26%.
2.13 Putin & government’s popularity
There has been very little change in the citizens attitude to Russia’s leaders and government. President Vladimir Putin’s personal popularity remains high and unchanged at 66% approve vs 32% disapprove, which Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s popularity is inversed with 33% approve and 65% disapprove.
Interestingly the same mirror images has emerged between the regional governors which enjoy a 61% approval rating and the Duma which has only a 38% approval rating.
As their regions develop the regional governors are seen in an increasingly good light. This is probably helped by the fact the regions are emerging from a near-miss debt crisis in the last few years and are mostly back in profit. The Ministry of Finance has only five regions on its “red list” where it has begun to manually run the worst regions finances. And the regions should benefit even more as Putin’s RUB27 trillion spending programme on the national projects kicks in the coming years.
15 RUSSIA Country Report July 2019 www.intellinews.com