FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

News

Russia’s top opinion polling agency is closing just in time for Putin's re-election

The firm will continue to conduct election polls, but won’t publish results during the campaign.

Russia’s campaign season is in full swing, with President Vladimir Putin seeking a fourth term in a vote set for March 18. So naturally, that means the country’s most respected opinion pollster is shutting down for a few months — out of fear of trouble from the authorities.

Levada Center, Russia’s main independent pollster, announced Tuesday it will stop publishing opinion polls related to the presidential election out of anxiety about legal problems after being officially classified a “foreign agent” back in 2016.

Advertisement

The concern is that Levada, a Russian homegrown pollster that’s received some foreign funding, could end up being accused of acting as a foreign organization meddling in Russia’s election, Levada's director, Lev Gudkov, told the Russian daily newspaper Vedomosti.

Read: Putin’s archrival has weaponized YouTube and turned it against the Kremlin

The firm will continue to conduct election polls but won’t publish results during the campaign, Gudkov said.

In fact, Levada’s numbers haven’t been dramatically out of whack with what state-controlled rival agencies have put out recently, at least as far as Putin’s popularity is concerned. Everyone’s polls show that Putin, whose government enjoys overwhelming influence over traditional media, should win in a landslide.

But in this election, the Kremlin wants to ring in Putin’s fourth term with a big turnout figure, too. And that’s where Levada’s figures have been strikingly different.

Read: ‘Russia’s Paris Hilton’ is running for president — But is she a Kremlin decoy?

In December, Levada found that 28 percent of respondents definitely planned to vote, while 30 percent said they probably would. The rival state-controlled VTsIOM agency, however, published figures that looked far better for the Kremlin: A full 70 percent said they’d definitely vote, and another 11 percent declared themselves likely to.

Levada Center has brushed up against Putin’s government before. In late 2016, the agency was branded a “foreign agent” by the Russian Ministry of Justice after putting out a poll that showed declining support for Putin’s United Russia party ahead of parliamentary elections.