New Polls Suspiciously Suggest Kremlin Close to 70-70 Goal, Travkin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 1 – In December 2016, Sergey Kiriyenko, deputy head of the Presidential Administration, told a group of deputy governors that the Kremlin’s goal for the March 2018 elections was to achieve 70 percent participation and 70 percent support for Vladimir Putin (newsru.com/russia/26dec2016/kirienko.html).

            Now, 14 months later, Nikolay Travkin, a former Russian politician, says, new polls by the nominally independent VTsIOM agency suggest that 71 percent of Russians say they intend to take part in the voting and 70 percent of them plan to vote for Putin (blog.newsru.com/article/01feb2018/vciom).

            Is this amazing prescience on the part of the Presidential Administration and a mark of its success in promoting popular participation and support or is it in fact simply an example of what has often been true in Russia: the polls both sociological and voting follow what those in power want rather than the other way around.