Putin’s popularity seems to be wearing thin

By Dale McFeatters

Vladimir Putin became acting president of Russia in 1999. He was elected in his own right in 2000 and easily re-elected in 2004. Rather unexpectedly, given Russia's history, he chose to honor a constitutional ban on serving more than two consecutive terms.

Even had he ignored the ban, such was his popularity that Putin likely would have been re-elected anyway. Instead, he proposed to swap jobs with his protege and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev. Cynical as it was, the Russian electorate went along with it, and, in 2008, Medvedev was duly elected president and Putin prime minister. Still, he seemed to intentionally go out of his way to upstage the president.

Even though that election was never in doubt, the Kremlin kept opposition candidates off the airwaves and police broke up the rallies and demonstrations of opposition parties. Soon there was no meaningful opposition to Putin's United Russia party, and the nation's second-largest party, the Communists, had been reduced to docile, me-too status.

Medvedev supporters had hoped he would be allowed a second term. He is more measured than Putin and is popular for speaking out against Russia's widespread corruption, even though he has done little to curb it.

In September, Putin informed the Russian public that he, and not Medvedev, would be running for president, for a term that had since been extended to six years, and that Medvedev would again become prime minister.

The cynicism of the double swap seemed to sour the Russian people, although there is little they can do about it. Even so, a new poll shows that United Russia is expected to win just over 50 percent of the vote in Sunday's parliamentary elections, meaning it will lose the two-thirds majority that has allowed it to legislate at will.

Putin, too, is still popular, with 61 percent support, but well down from the approval ratings in the high 70s he enjoyed as recently as a year ago. And there are signs that Russians are beginning to tire of his shameless self-promotion. The Kremlin was forced to admit that a diving expedition in which he appeared to recover ancient artifacts had been staged. And in a televised hockey game in which he played, it was clear the other players were allowing him to score.

Last week, when he stepped into the ring to congratulate the winner of a mixed-martial-arts bout, the crowd greeted him with catcalls and whistles of disapproval, a video of which quickly appeared on the Internet.

The presidential election is next March. Putin will almost assuredly win, but in doing so see his stature diminished as a politician who overstayed his welcome.

Dale McFeatters is a Scripps Howard News Service editorial writer.