Autumn this year will bring a great challenge to Vladimir Putin - State Duma elections are to be held on 19 September. At the moment, several signs indicate that this may be a turning point for Russians. You may ask: what do parliamentary elections have to do with Putin? Quite simple - one of the candidates is Putin's pocket party United Russia, and public support for this party must be viewed as support for Putin.
Why do I believe this to be true? The party was established to support Putin's political course, and if the party loses popularity, it means that Putin has lost popularity as well.
Let's take a brief look at history. The previous State Duma elections were held on 18 September 2016 with 450 seats at stake and the results were as follows:
United Russia - 336 seats;
Communist Party - 43 seats;
LDPR - 40 seats;
A Just Russia - 23 seats;
Nonpartisan politicians - 2 seats;
Vacant seats - 6.1
United Russia received 54.20% of the votes in 2016, which is a 4.88% increase compared to the previous election where it was able to secure 49.32%. You must agree that the dominance of United Russia is undisputable, meaning that Putin is supported by a staggering majority.
Therefore, it came as a shock when recently published data suggested that 27% of Russians would be willing to vote for United Russia in the upcoming election in September.2 This indicates that Putin's party has lost 27.2% of its supporters.
The last time United Russia had such a low electoral rating was in the summer of 2013, but this was drastically changed by Russia's invasion into Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea.3 Moreover, Putin's rating also slumped significantly in 2013.4
Does this mean that the success of Putin's party came only from wars? That sounds very scary. So, I dove into some deeper history and uncovered something quite interesting.
In 1999, when Putin became prime minister, he was supported by a mere 2% of the population. However, since the 9 September bombing of the apartment building on Guryanova Street in Moscow, Putin's rating started growing like cucumbers in Chernobyl, i.e. by 3-4% weekly. And in December, the peak of the Chechen War, his support had already reached 45%.5
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