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Russian Voters Want Putin to Run for 3rd Term Fifty-nine percent of Russians believe the constitution should be changed to allow President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term, the Reuters news agency reported, citing a latest public opinion survey by the Levada Center. The law requires Putin to step down when his second term ends in 2008 and he insists that is what he will do. But that has not dampened feverish speculation that the popular Kremlin chief may decide to stay on. The survey by the Levada Centre polling organization also found that only 11 percent of those it interviewed were strongly against Putin, a trim 53-year-old, running for a third term. The 59 percent that said they wanted Putin — accused in the West of backtracking on democratic reform — to stay on, compared to 44 percent in a poll by the same group in September 2005. Investors who have benefited from an economic upturn under Putin say the question of who will be in the Kremlin in two years’ time is the biggest single factor of uncertainty in Russia’s investment climate. “The Russian people are disinclined to let Putin go,” the Levada Centre said in a commentary on its website www.levada.ru. The poll showed that if Putin stood in a presidential election now he would take 32 percent of the vote while his nearest rival, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, would take four percent. If Putin steps down, analysts say, his most likely replacement will be a Kremlin insider endorsed by him. Rival Kremlin factions are jockeying for their candidates to be chosen. Commentators see First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov as likely choices. Some analysts say there is an influential lobby in Putin’s entourage trying to persuade him to stay on. Backers of a third term for Putin say it will bring political stability and continuity for investors. Those benefits, they say, will outweigh the risk that Western governments will accuse the Kremlin of tinkering with the constitution in order to cling to power. Levada Centre said it interviewed people
in 128 population centers across Russia for its poll in late May, but
did not give the size of the sample. ---------------------------------------------------
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