Russians believe that the elected president should first of all focus on solving the financial problems of the population.
The Institute for Conflict Studies and Analysis of Russia (ICAR) conducted a sociological survey dedicated to the attitudes of Russians before the presidential elections. From January 20 to February 3, 2024, a study was conducted on an all-Russian sample. The survey method is CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interview), namely a telephone survey by interactive structured questionnaire using special software for sociological surveys. A total of 1,600 respondents were interviewed. The statistical error with a probability of 0.95 does not exceed 2.5%.
Main results of the survey:
The absolute majority (80%) of Russians do not see any intrigue in the current presidential campaign. Therefore, half of them do not follow its course or do it extremely rarely. Only a quarter of Russians said they are actively following the course of the presidential race. The older generation declares active monitoring of the pre-election process twice as often (39%) as the youth and representatives of the middle age.
Russians call the ability to make difficult decisions (54%) and experience in public administration (53%) two of the main features of a presidential candidate. The top 5 features also include patriotism (46%), morality (39%) and age over 40 (33%). It is important to note that age groups do not have significant differences regarding the main traits that a presidential candidate should possess.
The main priorities for 2024 for the elected president should be solving financial problems and improving the economy. Four of the most mentioned priorities belong to these areas: improving the financial condition of Russians (31%), social policy, which includes decent salaries, pensions and social benefits (14%), the economy in general (14%), as well as improving and reducing costs for medical services (13%). The successful completion of “Special Military Operation” with 11% mentions is only in the fifth place. However, even here it shares this place with another issue related to the financial situation – improving the welfare of the people, which also gains 11%.
That is why, three quarters of respondents (74%) believe that the newly elected president cannot justify by the mandate of trust and significantly increase taxes in the first six months of his term, as well as to float ab exchange rate of the ruble (51%). At the same time, they (63%) also do not believe that he will complete the “SMO” in the first six months after his election without any preconditions.
Most Russians (67%) do not believe in the existence of Vladimir Putin’s doubles who replace him during public events. At the same time, 27% answered that they believe in their existence.
The majority of respondents (69%) state that their country needs both presidential and parliamentary elections. However, 12% claim that no elections at all are necessary. Another 11% support only presidential elections and 5% for keeping only parliamentary elections. The largest share of those who consider it necessary to hold all kinds of elections is among young people under 30 years – 79%.
43% of Russians say they are ready to vote for Vladimir Putin’s lifetime presidency if there would be such a referendum. Instead, 51% would vote against it. Different generations of Russians do not show significant differences in support for the lifetime term of the current president.
