“Putin must go,” said Mironov, who leads the Just Russia opposition party and plans to join a protesters’ march for the first time in downtown Moscow on Feb. 4. “I don’t see any willingness by Putin to change the political system. He believes monopoly of power is good.”
Speaking in an interview in his office in the State Duma, where he leads the party’s parliamentary faction, the former paratrooper pledged to put up a “very serious fight” in the March 4 presidential election.
Putin, 59, is facing the biggest challenge to his rule since he replaced the ailing President Boris Yeltsin on Dec. 31, 1999. Major challengers in the presidential race are backing demands for new parliamentary elections after allegations of fraud in Dec. 4 legislative polls sparked mass protests in Russian cities.
Russian stocks gained for the first time in four days yesterday, with the Micex Index adding 0.1 percent to 1,464.42 in Moscow. Stocks fell during the previous session after Fitch Ratings cut its outlook on Russia’s BBB credit grade to stable from positive, citing an increase in “political uncertainty.
Today, two months ahead of the presidential election scheduled for 4 March 2012, Vladimir Putin is an undisputed frontrunner. Polls conducted by Russia’s leading public opinion research institutions, the Levada Center and the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), give Putin an approval rating of 44 and 48 per cent respectively. According to VCIOM’s poll of January 7—8th, 2012, 48 per cent of Russians plan to vote for him in March. This is 6 per cent more than Putin’s own approval rating right after the parliamentary election last December, and 3 per cent more than his rating on New Year’s Eve.
Putin’s closest competitors for the coming election are Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov (10 per cent) and the notorious Vladimir Zhirinovsky (9 per cent).
This explains the enormous popular interest enjoyed by Putin’s draft election agenda, titled Program 2012—2018, which was published at http://www.putin2012.ru on January 12th. The draft was developed by the Institute for Social-Economic and Political Research, which was established specially for this purpose and is headed by the former long-time President of the Chuvash Republic, Nikolay Fedorov.
Of course, Mr. Putin’s real action plan as president will only be revealed after his inauguration, given that he wins the election. That said, the already disclosed draft agenda and his latest article in Izvestia provide a certain insight into Putin’s new ideology: a Development Strategy for Russian Civilization.
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