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Putin’s imaginary successor wins 18 percent in new poll, even though he doesn’t exist

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One in five Russians would vote for Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor, Andrei Semyonov, in next year’s presidential elections if the incumbent Kremlin leader decided not to run himself, a new poll has found.

There’s a pretty important flaw in their candidate, however. Semyonov does not exist.

The question about imaginary candidate Semyonov in a recent survey about the next presidential election, due to be held March 18, 2018, as an “experiment,” pollsters at the independent Levada Center said.

Respondents were told that President Putin had recently expressed support for Semyonov as a presidential candidate. They were then asked if they had heard of Semyonov and whether they would personally vote for him.

The range of answers was complex. While 63 percent said they had not heard of Semyonov and would not vote for him and a further 12 percent said they could not answer the question, 15 percent said they had not heard of Semyonov but would vote for him anyway.

In total, 11 percent of respondents said they actually they had heard of Semyonov – and 3 percent said they had both heard of Putin’s preferred candidate and they would vote for him.

In an interview with Vedomosti, Levada Center sociologist Karina Pipia said that the experiment had been carried out to “understand how the authority of the incumbent president extends to the electoral attitudes of Russians.” Pipia suggested that those who said they had heard of Semyonov may not be lying but are instead “not interested in politics or giving a socially approved answer.”

Pipia also told Vedomosti that Levada may conduct similar experiments in the future.

Asked about the poll, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the result “only verifies the overwhelming confidence in the head of the Russian state and his human resources policy.”

Putin recently became the longest serving leader of Russia since the Soviet-era Joseph Stalin. He is yet to confirm whether he will run in next year’s presidential election, but polling show consistently high levels of support for his leadership.

In the same poll as they were asked about Semyonov, respondents were asked whom they would vote for if the election were held next Sunday. Putin was a clear leader with 48 percent support; Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party, was listed as closest leader with 2 percent.

Though a separate study by a Russian think tank had recently listed Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as most likely to succeed Putin, less than 1 percent of Russians were found to support his candidacy in Levada’s poll.

Levada’s poll was conducted Aug. 18-22 and based on face-to-face interviews with 1,600 Russians in 47 regions.