Chances and reserves

About 82 percent of Ukrainian citizens are going to take part in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada. This high turnout results from the data of the latest opinion poll conducted by Image Control Center on Feb. 3-5 in all regional centers of Ukraine and the cities of Kyiv and Simferopol among 20,000 respondents (800 in each regional center) by the method of quota sampling that represents Ukraine’s adult population by gender, age, and education. The statistical error does not exceed 2 percent.

The respondents showed the following preferences: most of them - 22.2 percent - intend to cast their votes for the Party of Regions. Second best is Our Ukraine which gained 17 percent, with Yuliya Tymoshenko’s bloc trailing a little behind (14.8 percent). The three leaders outstripped all the other forces running for parliamentary seats by a wide margin. Yet among those who still have chances to surmount the 3-percent election barrier are the Communist Party (6.3 percent), Volodymyr Lytvyn’s People’s Bloc (5.6 percent), the Socialist Party (4.5 percent), the NE TAK opposition bloc (3.5 percent), and Natalia Vitrenko’s People’s Opposition (3.4 percent). In addition, such parties as Viche (2.6 percent), PORA-PRP Civic Bloc (2.2 percent), and NDP (1.6 percent) can also hope for success.

The sociologists also found the reason why parties are now working more actively with the voters who have not made their political choice. The point is that this reserve is rapidly shrinking and is now a mere 6.7 percent. Yet there still remains a category of voters whom the prospective MPs can try to win over. These are individuals who have made a choice but are not sure that this choice is right. For example, when asked “To what extent are you sure that you will vote for this very party?,” two thirds of the respondents said they were fully convinced that they had made a right choice. On the other hand, 20.5 percent are in general sure but still can change their decision, and 6.9 percent are not sure at all.

Another source of information about the preferences of residents of various oblast centers is a poll conducted by the so-called Youth Central Election Commission. This poll, held in Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv on Feb. 4-5, shows that more than a half of residents (57 percent) are going to vote for the Party of Regions. Kharkiv residents also intend to vote for BYuT (13 percent), Our Ukraine (8.4 percent), NE TAK (7.6 percent). KPU (5.8 percent), and Vitrenko’s People’s Opposition (3.7 percent). In Dnipropetrovsk, residents marked in the improvised ballots the Party of Regions as well as Our Ukraine (8.8 percent), NE TAK (8.5 percent), KPU (8.2 percent), BYuT (6.3 percent), People’s Opposition (3.8 percent), and Lytvyn’s People’s Bloc (3.1 percent).