Azernews.Az

The number of Russians who believe their prime minister has done a good job has dropped 10% in less than a month, Guardian reported.

Vladimir Putin's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level of the year in the first opinion poll published since the parliamentary elections and subsequent street protests.

A poll conducted a week after the elections and released on Friday showed 51% of Russians approved of how the Russian prime minister had done his job, down from 61% in November and 68% at the beginning of the year.

The survey by the state pollster VTsIOM highlighted a growing discontent and fatigue with the 59-year-old leader as he prepares for a presidential election in March that he is widely expected to win, but not as easily as seemed likely a month ago and perhaps not in the first round.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, suggested the decline was the result of "emotional overload" among Russians following the election and said his approval rating would swiftly recover.

"On the whole Vladimir Putin's rating remains on quite a high level, while there are fluctuations," the Interfax news agency quoted Peskov as saying.

"These days are characterised by an emotional overload linked to the post-election period. But the real state of affairs indicates there are grounds to expect an increase in the premier's rating in the very near future."

Tens of thousands of people protested last Saturday to call for a rerun of the 4 December parliamentary election, which opponents say was rigged to benefit the ruling United Russia party. It lost ground, receiving 49.3% of the vote, and the party's opponents said even that figure was inflated by fraud. International monitors also said the vote was slanted to favour United Russia.

The VTsIOM poll put Putin far ahead of the pack in the presidential election, with 42% of respondents saying they would vote for him. Next was the Communist party leader, Gennady Zyuganov, with 11%.

Dmitry Medvedev's approval rating also fell sharply in the poll, to 51%, down from 60% in November and 66% in January.

VTsIOM, which surveyed 1,600 people in 138 locations nationwide, said the poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.