The trust that Russians have for President Vladimir Putin has dropped to below 50 percent since his election victory last month, according to a weekly state-run poll.
Putin won almost 77 percent of the vote on March 18, cementing his lead until 2024. Opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who was barred from running in the election, has called for nationwide protests on May 5, two days ahead of Putin’s inauguration.
The state-run VTsIOM pollster registered Putin’s trust levels dropping from a high of 58.9 percent on January 21 to 48.4 percent on April 15.
The poll asked respondents to name politicians who they would “trust with important governmental questions.”
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ranked second and third in the list of most trusted politicians with 19 percent and 18 percent respectively.
The only other official to poll in double-digits was Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, at 10.7 percent, who also ranked third in a list of politicians who respondents “distrust most.”
Firebrand State Duma deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky and ex-presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak topped the list of politicians who Russians distrust the most, with 36.4 percent and 22.7 percent respectively.
The survey was carried out on April 8 among 1,000 people in at least 80 Russian regions.
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