Putin Popular as Leader, Less So as Candidate, Polls Say

Nearly a year after Vladimir Putin's election to a third term as president, most Russians are content with his leadership, although his popularity as a future presidential candidate has declined, according to two surveys published this week.

Among respondents surveyed by the Levada Center, 65 percent said that since his election on March 4, Putin has done more good than bad for the country, compared with 66 percent who felt that way about his work as prime minister a year ago. About 18 percent said that he'd done more bad than good so far.

But in a separate Levada survey, only 32 percent of respondents said they would vote for Putin as a presidential candidate if an election were held in the coming days, a decline from 40 percent in June.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov received the second-highest total in the poll with 8 percent of respondents' support, while 23 percent said they wouldn't vote at all and 17 percent couldn't decide.

Putin has not ruled out running for president again in 2018, when his current term ends.

Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Center, told Kommersant that the poll results regarding Putin's leadership were more indicative of people's overall attitude toward the president than a result of their approval of any concrete achievements.

"People do not generally remember clearly what exactly Vladimir Putin has promised, so when responding to those questions, they go off their own personal attitude toward him," Gudkov said.

"This is the effect of propaganda. Beyond their everyday concerns, people rely on what is broadcast on television," he said, adding that "people with low incomes and people from the provinces" were among those who listed achievements by the president.

Among the president's main accomplishments, 36 percent of respondents cited his "restoration of Russia's status as a great and respected power." Also, 39 percent of respondents said Putin has fulfilled his campaign promises and 28 percent said he has not.

Gudkov said people have a complex understanding of Putin and "are unsure whether he is forced to put up with corruption or whether he himself is involved in those [corruption] schemes."

The majority of the population "is neutral to the head of state, and they sense that there is no alternative to Putin," he said.

Both surveys were conducted from Feb. 15 to Feb. 18 among 1,600 residents in more than 130 cities in 45 regions across Russia. They have a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.