Most Russians Supported Constitutional Amendments

About 80% of Russians consider proposals by President Vladimir Putin important and support them. This follows from the results of a VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center) survey published by RBC on February 3. The survey was conducted on January 24, and the number of respondents amounted to 1.6 thousand people. According to study results, Russian leader’s social initiatives received the most approval. 91% of citizens supported the proposal to enshrine the mandatory regular indexation of pensions and other social benefits in the Constitution. 90% of Russians also praised the initiative to fix the minimum monthly wage not lower than the subsistence level. The second largely supported is the proposal to increase the residency qualification for presidential candidates from 10 to 25 years old - it was supported by 87% of citizens, to vest the Constitutional Court with the function of checking bills  received 81%, and to ban foreign citizenship for senior officials - 68%. The right of the head of state to appoint power structures heads and regional prosecutors after consultations with the Federation Council was approved by 66% of Russians. The same number of citizens praised the initiative to exclude the word “contract” from the Constitution. Most of Putin's initiatives were supported by people over 35. The Russian leader proposed amending the Basic Law of the country in a message to the Federal Assembly on January 15. On the same day, he signed a decree on establishing a working group, which included 75 people from various fields. The head of state introduced the draft law on amendments to the State Duma. Putin suggested that the Russians should vote for each initiative, and a working group together with the CEC will develop a voting format. At the moment, it is known that voting will be conducted on the law as a whole, not on individual points.