Almost half of Russians consider President Vladimir Putin an ideal or “close to ideal” president of Russia, a nationwide survey conducted by the independent Levada Center said.
Overall, 64 percent of respondents said they approved of the president’s dealings.
Of the 41 percent of people who consider Putin an ideal leader, 6 percent said the current president had no faults at all, Kommersant reported Monday.
Forty-six percent of those polled disagreed that Putin was an ideal leader, while stopping short of calling him a bad leader.
“Most people see stains on the sun. It’s normal when people are critical of their leader — it shows the sanity of the respondents,” Levada Center deputy director Alexei Grazhdankin told the daily newspaper.
The poll, conducted in May, indicates that 62 percent of respondents agreed that Vladimir Putin took responsibility for what was happening in the country; 61 percent agreed that he had an inherently good strategic vision for the country’s problems; and 45 percent said they believed that the president was attentive to the needs of citizens.
Forty-one percent said they agreed that Vladimir Putin asserted control over his subordinates, and 36 percent said that he did not rely on popular opinion for making decisions.
In March, another poll conducted by the Levada Center revealed that only 22 percent wanted to see Putin re-elected when his term ends in 2018.
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