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How Putin Managed to Dodge the Blame for Russia's Recession
Throughout his 15 years at the center of Russian political life, Putin’s rating has never dropped below an enviable 60 percent, according to Levada.
“There is no other country whose leader has had an approval rating of above 60 percent for more than 15 years, and these figures are not manipulated,” said Alexei Levinson, senior researcher at the Levada Center.
At the same time, 2014 was the first year since 2000 — when Putin first became president — that Russians’ real incomes shrank. The annual drop was estimated by Rosstat, the state statistics service, at 1 percent, while in December alone real incomes fell 7.3 percent compared with the same month in 2013.
Putin’s steady popularity has always been almost universally attributed by experts to economic stability and fast-rising living standards under his rule. So why is he still popular now when this is no longer the case? …. http://www.themoscowtimes.com
Source: http://luismmx.blogspot.com/2015/02/how-putin-managed-to-dodge-blame-for.html
