Putin’s high rating in Moscow is cold shower for protesting movement

The high rating of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) reported, is the cold shower for the protesting movement, the political experts told Itar-Tass on Wednesday in comments on the results of the sociological survey, which FOM made public on Wednesday. “The results of the sociological survey can sound unexpected for the opposition and underline that the life in Twitter and the real life in Moscow are different things,” Director of the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies Dmitry Badovsky stated. Meanwhile, he noted that the FOM sociological survey is one of the most large-scale surveys conducted recently, as “over 3,600 people were participating in the sociological survey in all Moscow districts,” while the number of respondents makes 500-800 people in other sociological surveys. “The results of the sociological survey confirmed that the real middle class, which wants to work and earn money, reacts not to words, but deeds,” the expert stated. Badovsky also noted that Putin’s lead ahead of Mikhail Prokhorov coming second makes over four times, “meanwhile, if the presidential rating is growing, Prokhorov’s rating is falling.” “The results of the FOM sociological survey in Moscow are the cold shower for the off-system opposition,” Deputy Director of the Russian Centre for Political Conjuncture Alexei Zudin said with confidence. “The rating of the incumbent authorities is coming back to the pre-crisis level,” “the ratings of the opposition are microscopically low” and are close to the data that shows a quite low assessment, which the Russians gave to the activities of the opposition in the sociological survey, which the Levada Centre had made public recently, he added. For his part, Director of the International Institute of Political Expertise Yevgeny Minchenko noted, “The protest of the off-system opposition is gradually on decline: what they have been doing recently is pushing them deeper in the electoral ghetto.” Minchenko also noted a falling rivalry from the off-system opposition in several issues. “The parliamentary opposition parties - A Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia are solidarizing with the ruling party,” he said, noting that, particularly, “this is happening thanks to the fact that representatives of these parties are employed in the regional authorities.” The FOM sociological survey showed that 62 percent of Muscovites with firm political views would have voted for President Vladimir Putin if a presidential election were held this Sunday. On the whole, 50 percent of respondents would have been prepared to support Putin in a virtual election. The poll was conducted on April 3-22, 2013 and involved 3,600 respondents - 300 people in each of Moscow’s 12 administrative areas. The margin of error does not exceed 2.3 percent.