The next presidential campaign will take place in over a year's time, yet the candidacies are constantly monitored by prestigious polling services.
Officially, there are two candidates, Yevhen Marchuk and Leonid Kuchma, but other probable contenders are carefully examined. All these are tentative appraisals, of course, yet The Day asked Mykola Sliusarevsky, director of the Institute of Social and Political Psychology with the Ukrainian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, to comment on the possibilities.
Q.: How would you consider today's rankings of the most likely presidential candidates?
A.: They cannot be used for any serious forecasting under the circumstances. Rather, they reflect opinions with regard to certain candidates when considered as about to start campaigning today. For the time being, different researchers are drawing up different lists, relying on their intuition mostly. No one knows what names will be on the official ballot. We might see Vyacheslav Chornovil there, too, although word has it he will not run in the next campaign. Then who will get his voters? Another reason saying we should consider the current lists for very tentative is that there is no campaign vehicle at work yet, and when it becomes operational, changes are likely to happen.
Q.: Would it be possible to assess the starting capital of the current candidates?
A.: Yes, provided there is enough monitoring data. And yet I would not make any serious prognoses at this stage. You see, the alignment of political forces is undergoing serious changes and our constituencies are very rigidly oriented toward the rank and position of any given candidate. Only recently we could seriously ponder Oleksandr Moroz and Leonid Kuchma, but after what has happened at the Verkhovna Rada this paring looks premature. One thing is certain, though: the next campaign will have two rounds. Now it is hard to say who, apart from Serhiy Holovaty, will be still there to enter the runoff: I mean Messrs. Moroz, Marchuk, Kuchma, and Lazarenko.
Q.: What about Natalia Vitrenko?
A.: This is what I call an extraordinary phenomenon to be studied by a sober analyst. She broke surface comparatively recently, so there is not enough monitoring data to consider the probability. I would rather agree with Prof. Pocheptsov (Den, July 7, 1998) that she is our Ukrainian Zhirinovsky, in the sense that she is appropriating voters.
Q.: You mean taking them away? From whom?
A.: From a Leftist candidate, or so it seems at first glance. But it could be any other candidate who becomes strong enough.
Photo:
Mykola Sliusarevsky







