With Runoff Election Clearly in Sight, Winner’ s Name Is So Far Blurred

As is always the case before elections, analysts are mounting their hobbyhorse of political fortune-telling and playing the forecast game, in which “ratings” are a traditional trump card. In other words, it is about the percentage of the electorate ready to cast their votes for a specific candidate or political force “next Sunday.” It is sociological ratings which numerous experts build their prognoses on and candidates use in their election campaign. These data of sociological agencies provide, like nothing else on earth, a host of opportunities for speculation. At the same time, if properly interpreted, they put the record straight. As the experience of preceding election campaigns shows, one should not blindly believe, let alone be guided by, the rating when claiming that whoever has the highest percentage will win... On the other hand, one can, of course, express certain suppositions based on the fresh results of a poll conducted by a sociological company that has repeatedly proved its professionalism — for example, that there will be two rounds in this country’s coming presidential elections because fewer than 50% of votes are so far ready to vote for any of the likely candidates. It is also possible to forecast quite safely that Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko may be one of the two contenders for the top executive’s office who will qualify for the second round. The June survey of public attitudes toward the coming elections, made by the Ukrainian Institute of Sociological Research and the Social Monitoring Center, shows that, although Mr. Yushchenko’s rating has gone a bit down in the past few months, he still tops the list of electoral preferences. He would have grabbed 21% of the votes of those polled had the election been held on the day of the survey. (The poll embraced 2088 respondents aged over 18.) 10% of the respondents intend to cast their votes for Communist leader Petro Symonenko and 6% to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Incidentally, following the logic of developments in the pro- governmental camp, analysts are inclined to consider the latter as Yushchenko’s most probable rival in the runoff. Another indication of the current premier’s chances is the number of people who “know” this political figure (also an item of the poll). This percentage went up by 5% (to 75%) between March and June this year, which in turn increased overall support for the Donetsk leader. Sociologists consider this a positive tendency for Mr. Yanukovych. But if the Communist leader goes through to the second round, everything will be “as always.”

The survey results also allow making some conclusions about the probability of nominating “joint” oppositional and pro-governmental candidates. For example, if Yushchenko, Moroz and Tymoshenko joined forces in favor of Yushchenko, this would give the Our Ukraine leader another 5%. A similar alliance in favor of Moroz would increase the number of the Socialist leader’s voters by 6% (to 11%). Should Yuliya Tymoshenko suddenly become the joint oppositional candidate, her rating will jump by 7% and reach 12%. This allows one to suggest that the three political figures’ electorates are too different to achieve success even by putting forward a joint candidate. The same inessential growth of electoral preferences is also obvious in the case of hypothetical “joint” candidates from the parliamentary majority. These sociological survey results show that all speculations about nominating a joint candidate from both the pro-governmental and the oppositional forces bear the hallmark of Kyiv’s political beau monde rather than the public at large. This also means it is not enough to announce a joint candidate to secure a victory — this also involves tremendous work...

Another point: it is no accident that political scientists do not consider the possible emergence of a “third force” which would stay out of the oppositional and the pro-governmental camps and could seriously compete with the already-discernible contenders. The poll shows that 73% of the population do not so far expect a new force to emerge. Commenting on a hypothetical third force, Oleksandr Yaremenko, director of the Ukrainian Center for Sociological Research, said it was a good but premature idea because society is not yet prepared for it...