17.08.2012
Electoral support for parties at the start of the election campaign: beginning of August 2012
- If parliamentary elections were held in the near future, the largest share of votes among those who intend to participate would be received by Batkivshchyna, supported by 26.2% of likely voters, and the Party of Regions with 24.6%. The UDAR party led by Vitalii Klychko would receive 11.8%, while the Communist Party of Ukraine would gain 9.4%. Close to the 5% electoral threshold are also Natalia Korolevska’s party Ukraine – Forward with 4.3% and the All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda with 4.2%. At the same time, 15.4% of those who plan to vote had not yet decided which party to support.
- Batkivshchyna and UDAR are more often supported by voters in the Western and Central regions, while the Party of Regions and the Communist Party are more popular in the East and South, and Svoboda finds most of its support in the West of the country. Among respondents who had already decided which party they would vote for, confidence in their choice was quite high, with 48.9% being fully confident and a further 43.5% rather confident.
- The main reason respondents gave for choosing a party was its perceived ability to solve the country’s problems, cited by 51.5% of those intending to vote for a party. Other frequently mentioned reasons included the presence of a strong and decisive leader at the head of the party, mentioned by 41.7%, the belief that the party could improve the life of people like the respondent, cited by 31.2%, the closeness of the party’s ideological positions to the respondent’s own views and beliefs at 29.5%, the party’s ability to carry out reforms and positive changes in society at 24.8%, its capacity to ensure stability in the state at 24.0%, and the presence in the party leadership of people who command the respondent’s respect at 23.5%.
- These reasons were common across all regions, but some regional differences were also observed. In the South and East, respondents more often pointed out that although the chosen political force had shortcomings, other parties were even worse. In the Western region, voters more frequently mentioned that a party defends the Ukrainian language as the sole state language and protects Ukrainian culture, traditions and values.
- Overall, the pre-election situation was characterized by a low level of public optimism. Nearly two thirds of respondents, 63%, believed that events in Ukraine were moving in the wrong direction, a view shared by majorities in all regions, ranging from 54% in the South to 74% in the West.
Methodology
- Survey organizations: GfK Ukraine, Rating Group, SOCIS Center for Social and Marketing Research, Razumkov Centre.Survey population: adult population of Ukraine aged 18 and older.
- Sample size: 10,979 respondents.
- Method: stratified multistage probability sample with quota selection at the final stage, face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire.
- Sampling error: no more than 1.0% with a confidence level of 0.95, excluding design effect.
- Fieldwork dates: 27 July–9 August 2012.
- West: Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi.
- Center: Kyiv city, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv region, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernihiv.
- South: Autonomous Republic of Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv.
- East: Dnipropetrovsk,
- Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Kharkiv.
