By: UK Reuters

Only one in eight Russians believes President Dmitry Medvedev holds real power, exactly a year after he was inaugurated on Thursday, according to the latest figures from Russian pollsters Levada.

Twelve percent said power in Russia lay with Medvedev. This figure was at a high of 22 percent in April 2008 just after his election as Russia’s third president, but before he took office.

Far more people — 30 percent — believe his predecessor and Russia’s powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, controls authority while just under half of all respondents said they shared power equally.

Medvedev has struggled to escape from Putin’s shadow after being picked by Putin to succeed him before winning an overwhelming endorsement in a March 2008 election that rival candidates said was loaded against them.

Since the election, Russia fought a brief war with ex-Soviet Georgia last August and has been badly crippled by the global economic crisis, with unemployment now at an eight-year high and the rouble devalued by a third against the dollar.

Levada’s poll was conducted on Apr. 24-27 across 128 polling sites in 46 Russian regions and has a 3.4 percent margin of error.

Eighty percent of those polled also said Medvedev was continuing Putin’s policies while just 13 percent said he was changing course, despite Medvedev’s attempts to portray a more liberal image.

A separate analysis of television coverage by Russian business daily Kommersant showed a sharp increase in appearances of Medvedev over Putin in recent days on the three main channels, which are all state-controlled.

On May 6, Medvedev received over 27 minutes of airtime compared with five minutes for Putin, Kommersant reported.

“In his first presidential year, Russia’s third president has tried to achieve two things: keep true to the policies of Russia’s second president, Vladimir Putin, and to find his own political style. So far Mr Medvedev has succeeded in both directions,” the newspaper wrote.”