During his visit to Krasnoyarsk, Vladimir Putin not only called United Russia not the ideal
political structure but even admitted that leading this party's lists will entail "costs,"
including for him personally. NG (Nezavisimaya Gazeta) asked leading political analysts to
explain precisely what kind of losses the president was talking about.

Aleksey Malashenko, Member, Expert Council, Carnegie Moscow Center
Putin realizes perfectly well that his popularity cannot be compared to the popularity of United Russia. The politics of this dominant party is the politics of corruption, rising prices, and so forth. According to tradition, our supreme ruler does not answer for everything bad; the immediate implementer of his will answers for everything. Therefore, when he took the risk and headed up the United Russia list, he unquestionably transferred some of its sins onto himself. Naturally, his ratings have already started to go down. If Putin is going to be associated not with being the leader but with being a participant in what the party and government are doing, then his authority is under threat. This is a big risk for him, therefore in the future we are going to see more than one unexpected decision.

Mikhail Vinogradov, General Director, Center for the Study of Current Political Events
By supporting a party, the president has risked his own ratings. These kind of fears, at the moment Putin decided to head up the list, certainly existed, among other reasons, because the idea of parties is not very popular in Russia in general. However, the sociological surveys have not supported this. At a time when the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and the SPS (Union of Right-wing Forces) are beginning their campaigns to mobilize the anti-Putin voter and the number of open opponents to the current president is growing, loyalty to Putin is increasing.

Dmitriy Badovskiy, Deputy General Director, Social Systems NII (Scientific Research Institute)
Above all, the costs for Putin are connected with the fact that United Russia is not going to come out with a result that corresponds to the president's ratings. In some sense, this is even harmful, because it would almost inevitably lead to a two-party Duma. Today the gap between United Russia's ratings and Putin's is on the order of 20%. The president's statement is addressed primarily to those people who are thinking to themselves, "Of course we're in favor of Putin, but we don't want to vote for this party." Putin told them approximately the following: "I agree with you that the party isn't that great, but I have taken upon myself the obligations to modernize this party and I am taking responsibility." Just how much this gap will close is a serious question. If United Russia receives less than 60% in these elections, for instance, and Just Russia makes it into the State Duma, then we can anticipate a new twist in Mironov's struggle for the image of president.

Dmitriy Orlov, General Director, Agency for Political and Economic Communications
Putin has never participated in the political process as a party leader; before this he worked in the executive branch. This new status for him  and his new role in Russian politics entails costs. Moreover, he has virtually linked his political future to United Russia, and this somewhat limits his freedom of choice and his opportunity for dialog with other political forces.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta