Page 24 - RusRPTDec23

Mishustin has made steady gains since he took office in 2017 with an approval rating of 53% that rapidly fell to a low of 31% in the summer of 2018 and remained under 40% for the next year. But after a four-year recession ended that year and since the start of the war, Mishustin has shown himself to be a competent administrator and has increasingly won over the population for maintaining the standards of living in Russia.
The government has also seen its approval tick up two points to 69%, which is not much of a difference from where it has been for the last year. Even the Duma, one of the most disliked institutions in Russia, has seen its approval rise to 61% with a 33% disapproval rating. The approval/disapproval of the Duma is usually balanced and often with disapproval outweighing the two.
Regional governors retain their relative popularity with a 72% approval rating, down by two points from October. The governors have seen their approval rise from last year when their polling numbers were mostly under 60%, but they have not managed to rise to the point where they were challenging Putin’s own popularity a few years ago.
Finally, the share of respondents who think that protests are possible with political demands remains a low 19% in September, well below the 29% recent peak in February on the eve of the start of the Ukrainian war. However, interestingly those that said they would participate in the demonstrations should they occur was 18% in September, on a par with every other poll for the last few years, suggesting there is a hard-core community of Russians that remain politically committed to opposition to the government, but that is relatively small in size.
The same poll asking if protests with economic demands, and if the respondent would participate should they happen came in at 14% and 13% respectively, suggesting Russians are much less dissatisfied with the standard of living than their political freedoms.
24 RUSSIA Country Report December 2023 www.intellinews.com