The presidential approval ratings hit annual high.

MOSCOW, December 29, 2016.  Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the electoral rating of parties, rating of trust in politicians, and the assessments of the performance of public institutions.

The level of support for the United Russia party reached 48% on December 17-18; the results of the December 24-25 survey suggest that that the rating is the same. The LDPR support has almost not changed over a week (12.1%). The CPRF rating has strengthened (from 8.2% to 8.8%); and the rating of A Just Russia party revealed strong dynamics: after a decrease recorded on December 17-18 to 4.9%, its support level went up to 6.5% on December 24-25.

Vladimir Putin confidence rating kept growing and reached 62.1%. Confidence in Sergey Shoygu shows positive dynamics (from 11.5% to 14.0%). Sergey Lavrov (13.8%) is in the list of the top three most popular political leaders.

The public assessments of the presidential performance have increased from 85.8% to 86.8% over a week which is the highest record in 2016. According to the December 24-25 survey data, the share of Russians who approve of the performance of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is 61.2%.  The government approval rating went up to 63.2% on December 24-25 after a drop to 60.9% on December 17-18.

The VCIOM survey was conducted on December 24-25, 2016  in 130 settlements, 46 regions and 8 federal districts of Russia, with a sample of 1600 persons representative of the Russian population aged 18 and over according to sex, age, education, type of settlement. The survey was conducted with multi-stage stratified sample based on general rule of walking and quotas at the final selection stage.  The margin of error (taking into account the design effect) with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.5%. The survey method is community-based structured face-to-face interviews. Apart from the margin of error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork should be taken into account.

* Regarding the question “If the Russian State Duma elections took place next Sunday, which of the following parties would you vote for?” (closed-ended question, one answer)

* Regarding the question “We all tend to trust some people and distrust others. Speaking about the politicians, who would you entrust important public matters to?” (open-ended question, any number of answers)

* Regarding the question “All we tend to trust some people and distrust others. Speaking about the politicians, who would you entrust important public matters to?” (open-ended question, any number of answers)

* Regarding the question “Do you generally approve/disapprove…?” (closed-ended question, one answer for each institution)

* Regarding the question “Do you generally approve/disapprove…?” (closed-ended question, one answer for each institution)

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!