While the Russians bought New Year presents and prepared to dance around the table with olivier and champagne, the German edition of Welt am Sonntag was busy with serious business: its experts chose the main politicians in 2020. The Germans were helped in this by the results of a study conducted by the YouGov survey company.
The question posed to the respondents was “Which politician in 2020 has the most direct relation to solving the main foreign policy problems?”
Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin are the main political figures of 2020
The Germans predictably gave the first line in the political ranking to their chancellor, Angela Merkel. 22% of respondents are sure that this particular politician is best suited for solving the global tasks of foreign policy in the coming year.
Merkel has another year to demonstrate the full power of German politics. Indeed, in 2021, she will leave her post and is unlikely to be re-elected, as the media claimed in 2018 (in particular, Reuters, citing German party sources).
But in second place is the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who voted for 20% of respondents.
The three most influential politicians in 2020, according to Welt am Sonntag, are closed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who received 19 percent.
But the fact that only 16% of YouGov respondents believe that the US President Donald Trump will play the main role in the foreign policy arena. It is curious if this figure would have changed in connection with the latest events in Iran when Trump personally ordered the liquidation of the IRG General Kassem Suleimani. The Pentagon called it "decisive action of a defensive nature."
The new chairman of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, gained 12% of popularity, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping - 10%. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson got even less - 9%.
The woman, who is called Merkel's potential successor, the Minister of Defense and the head of the Christian Democratic Union, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer won only 3% of the vote.
29 percent of respondents would not trust any of these politicians to solve pressing political problems, and 21 percent of respondents found it difficult to answer.
Putin is the politician of the year for Russians
Almost half of the inhabitants of Russia - namely 46% - consider Vladimir Putin to be the main politician of the past year. These are the results of a telephone survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion in November-December 2019. It was attended by 1.6 thousand people whose age exceeds 18 years.
Top 3 is closed by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (15% of the vote) and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu (10% voted for him). The top five politicians in 2019 also included LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
At the same time, 47% of Russians would not have invited any of the Russian politicians to their holiday table, and 22% of those polled agreed to a New Year feast with the personal presence of Vladimir Putin. 12% of respondents are ready to listen to New Year’s toasts of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and 4% of Russians were ready to call Dmitry Medvedev under the Christmas tree.
Along with the title of “politicians of the past year”, Putin was also awarded the title “main media person of the year”, taking a leading position among all persons mentioned in the media. Of the foreign politicians most often flashed in the Russian media, Vladimir Zelensky came first. This data was shared by Interfax, based on the data of its “Integrated News Analysis System”.
