An opinion poll conducted by Levada Centre in February has revealed that Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev's approval ratings are 48% and 36%, respectively. In February 2008, on the eve of the presidential elections, the ratings were 62% and 39%. Over the course of the year Vladimir Putin's rating dropped by 22.6% and President Medvedev's by 7.7%, which sociologists attribute mainly to the economic crisis. According to some forecasts the crisis may last for 2 to 3 years, until the next presidential elections, due in 2012.
If, as is possible, the ratings of the country's leaders continue to drop at the same rate, in March 2012 they will stand at 22.3% for Mr Putin and 28.3% for Mr Medvedev. (Under such a scenario the President will outstrip the Prime Minister in early 2011 with an approval rating of 30.7% versus Mr Putin's 28.8%).
One can assess their electoral prospects in 2012. In the 2008 presidential elections Mr Medvedev converted his 39% approval rating into 70.28% of the votes, i.e. 1 percentage point of the rating equaled 1.8% of the vote. At the time of the 2004 elections Mr Putin's approval rating was 62% (according to Levada Centre), yet he won 71.31% of the vote, i.e. 1.15% of the vote per 1 percentage point of the approval rating. In other words, Mr Medvedev is 57% more electable than Mr Putin.
If the conversion coefficients remain unchanged in three years' time Mr Medvedev will have the support of 50.94% of the voters (i.e. he will win in the first round), and Mr Putin of only 25.6%. This clearly shows that given the rate at which Mr Putin's rating is falling (1.88% a month), the Prime Minister, if he wants to assure a first-round victory and be elected for a third term, will have to hold elections no later than July 2009, when his rating is expected to be 43.65%, which would deliver him 50.2% of the votes (in August he can count only on 49.25% of the votes).
Alexander Kukolevsky