: Choice of two tandemocrats

The Russians are eager to see competition between Russian duumvirs in the presidential election. Also, they do not believe in the possibility of victory of someone else and do not want to see someone with an alternative. This indicates the extremely low political culture of Russian voters.

The Russians want to see competition between Putin and Medvedev. This is evidenced by the results of the Levada Center survey. 38 percent of respondents are considered desirable for Medvedev and Putin to act as candidates in the presidential elections. Medvedev without Putin wants to see 12 percent of the respondents with a candidate (there were 8 in February), Putin - 19 (it was - 17).

Putin will become the president of Russia in 2012, 39 percent are sure. A fewer potential voters believe in Medvedev - 28 percent. In the victory of someone third-13 percent.

Since January 2011, the optimism of surveyed regarding who exactly makes the president’s choice. If in January 47 percent believed that the president will become the one whom the participants of the tandem will choose among themselves, now there are 32 percent of them. The same number of respondents believe that the choice is for Russian voters.

The thirst for competitive elections is observed against the backdrop of subsidence of the ratings of the tandemocrats themselves and the growth of protest moods.

According to FOM, the trust rating - in the open question - Putin a week ago was 36 percent (minus 12 since 2008), Medvedev - 32 (autumn level of 2009). Ratings update minimums (see the effect of monetization ). Fixes the fall in the Levada Center (see Putin's minimum ) and even in the servile VTIIMA.

It turns out that in society there is no request for a third political figure (only 18 percent opposed the inclusion of the tandem participants in the election race), but there is a clear request for political competition.

More Russians believe in the “split tandem” than in 2009 - the share increased from 12 to 20 percent. However, the number of confident that these are “speculations of journalists and opposition politicians”, although it falls, but stably large - in two years it decreased from 59 to 55 percent.

In other words: the fact that Medvedev and Putin are members of the same team (an option - a gang that is under trial) is the majority. And the ratings of this team are falling, and confidence in its effectiveness is reduced.

However, this is weakly reflected in the electoral prospects - the majority does not see alternatives and is willing to vote for one or another participant in the power duumvirate.

As for the desire to see both candidates in the elections, apparently the “Hippodrome effect” works here. Voters want to look at the race of Russian leaders.

Psychologically explainable: few people want to admit aloud that everyone has already decided for him, and his opinion is not accepted into the calculation at all. The conspiracy of tandemocrats on the “problem 2012” seems precisely such a solution, without the participation of the voters themselves.

The Duumvir race, of course, seems incredible, since the rating of tandemocrats for two for two, it grows and falls equally in both. And the administrative resource is not divided in half, and its use in the presidential election seems to be inevitable. It would turn out just comical when Putin would have scored at 90 percent in the conditional Chechnya, and Medvedev received a similar result in the conditional Ingushetia. In the case of real competition, the tandem would also have to divide the state budget into two, distributing promises on behalf of the current government.

In the heads of voters, there is no idea of ​​the technique of the electoral process and the risks associated with it. No one thinks that the election promises of two competing - purely hypothetical reasoning - tandemocrats will pull the Russian economy to the bottom by increasing the deficiency of the state budget and overclocking inflation. How it will affect the income of the population to imagine. In this sense, an elite conspiracy, since the Russians do not want anyone third, will cost cheaper.

However, the Russians want a show and hope that they will be allowed to participate in it.

This is generally the specifics of the Russian attitude to the electoral process. Wanting the possibilities of choice, few are aware of responsibility for him. An even fewer potential voters are ready to analyze the risks of your own solution.

According to the data at the end of January 2010, 54 percent of Russians spoke for direct elections of governors. In the summer of 2010, the Levada survey recorded 59 percent of the winging of the election of governors. This indicator is generally steadily ranging in the region of 50-60 percent from the very cancellation of the governor’s elections in 2004. Many experts of the election of governors are presented with a mechanism that prevents the regression of the political system and the ruling class (we are also: see the kingdom of the election curve ). However, the reality of the surveys makes us think: were the Kremlin political technologists right, motivating the abolition of the election by the unpreparedness of the Russian voter?