Electoral moods of Ukrainian population: March 2010

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18.03.2010

Electoral moods of Ukrainian population: March 2010

According to the results of the conducted survey, in the second round of the presidential election Viktor Yanukovych was supported by 67% of Petro Symonenko’s supporters, 40% of Serhiy Tihipko’s, 25% of Volodymyr Lytvyn’s, 16% of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s, and 8% of Viktor Yushchenko’s. Yulia Tymoshenko was supported by 76% of Oleh Tyahnybok’s supporters, 60% of Viktor Yushchenko’s, 50% of Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s, 40% of Volodymyr Lytvyn’s, 33% of Serhiy Tihipko’s, and 13% of Petro Symonenko’s. About one quarter of the supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Volodymyr Lytvyn voted against both candidates.
It is interesting that 21% of voters who voted for Viktor Yanukovych in the second round actually voted against Yulia Tymoshenko. The highest number of such voters was in the Center, North, and East. Conversely, one quarter of voters who voted for Yulia Tymoshenko actually voted against Viktor Yanukovych. The largest share of such voters was in the North and East.
Thus, in the second round of the presidential election, about one quarter of voters (6.7 million Ukrainians) voted not for, but rather against: either against Tymoshenko, or against Yanukovych, or against both simultaneously. The rest — about 70% — voted for a specific candidate.
As of today, at least one quarter of voters from the category of those who voted “against” support Serhiy Tihipko, one in ten support Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and one in ten remain “against all.” At the same time, about 18% of them now support the incumbent president, and 7% support his opponent in the election.
As of early March, the politicians’ ratings are as follows (among all respondents):
Viktor Yanukovych – 38.2%, Yulia Tymoshenko – 22.4%, Serhiy Tihipko – 13.6%, Arseniy Yatsenyuk – 5%, Viktor Yushchenko – 2.1%, Petro Symonenko – 1.7%, Volodymyr Lytvyn – 1.2%, Oleh Tyahnybok – 1.1%.
Other politicians – 1.1%, against all – 4%, will not participate in the elections – 5.7%, undecided – 4.2%.
Compared to the first round of the elections, support for the now-incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych increased most significantly.
The rating of Yulia Tymoshenko has almost not changed: 22% among all respondents and 25% among those who will participate in the elections. At the same time, there were small changes in the structure of Tymoshenko’s electorate: support slightly increased in the West at the expense of some supporters primarily of Viktor Yushchenko, remained unchanged in the North, and slightly decreased in the Center due to shifts to Serhiy Tihipko. In addition, support for Yulia Tymoshenko decreased in the East, South, and Donbas, where Viktor Yanukovych strengthened his positions.
The rating of Serhiy Tihipko has not changed (about 13%): losses of supporters in the Donbas and South are currently compensated by flows from Yulia Tymoshenko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and Viktor Yushchenko in the West, Center, and North. Support for Tihipko in the East is stable and is about 20%.
Since January, Viktor Yushchenko has lost more than half of his support (from 5% to 2%). Arseniy Yatsenyuk has also slightly declined (from 7% to 5%).
At present, the electorate of Viktor Yanukovych is significantly more mobilized than that of other politicians, and this explains the electoral gap between Yanukovych and the Party of Regions. Thus, about 75% of Party of Regions supporters declared readiness to participate in snap parliamentary elections. This is the highest indicator; for comparison, supporters of BYuT are mobilized only at 64%, Front for Change at 61%, and Strong Ukraine at 57%.
As of early March, the situation with party ratings looks as follows (among all respondents):
Party of Regions – 36%, BYuT – 22%, Strong Ukraine (Tihipko) – 12%, Front for Change (Yatsenyuk) – 5%, Communist Party – 2.7%, Our Ukraine (Yushchenko) – 1.9%, Lytvyn Bloc – 1.7%, Svoboda – 1.7%.
Others – less than 1%, against all – 3.2%, undecided or will not vote – 11%.
Analyzing the structure of party electorates, the following trends can be noted.
BYuT and Front for Change have almost identical regional structures (one third of supporters live in the West, one quarter in the Center and North). Our Ukraine, and especially Svoboda, are oriented mostly toward the West.
The Communist Party and the Party of Regions are traditionally oriented toward the South-Eastern regions.
The structure of Strong Ukraine’s supporters is the most universal: half come from the so-called “orange” regions (with a slight bias toward the North), and half from the so-called “blue-white” regions (with a strong dominance of the East).
Strong Ukraine and Svoboda have the highest share of supporters with higher education. These two forces are also the most oriented toward youth. The oldest voters dominate in the Communist Party and Our Ukraine. Based on the data, it can be assumed that Svoboda’s supporters are “new nationalists,” while Our Ukraine’s supporters are “old nationalists.”
Among supporters of Svoboda, the Communist Party, and Our Ukraine, men dominate. In the rest, women dominate.
Voters of the Party of Regions, Communist Party, and Strong Ukraine mainly live in cities, while BYuT and the Lytvyn Bloc mainly live in villages.
The Russian-speaking population dominates only among supporters of the Party of Regions and the Communist Party, which also have the largest share of ethnic Russians. Again, the structure of Strong Ukraine is the most universal also in terms of native language: half identify Ukrainian as native, half identify Russian or both Ukrainian and Russian.
In the structures of BYuT and Front for Change, UOC-KP believers dominate. At the same time, among BYuT supporters there are slightly more Greek Catholics and fewer UOC-MP believers, while Front for Change has fewer Greek Catholics and more UOC-MP believers.
The largest share of Greek Catholics is among supporters of Svoboda and Our Ukraine (where it is the dominant faith).
UOC-MP believers dominate among supporters of the Communist Party and the Party of Regions; there is also a significant number of believers who do not belong to any confession or consider themselves non-believers (atheists).
At the same time, it should be noted that in the structures of both the Communist Party and the Party of Regions, almost one in five voters belongs to the UOC-KP.
Among supporters of Strong Ukraine, there are approximately equal shares of UOC-KP believers, UOC-MP believers, and believers who do not belong to any confession.

Methodology

Survey audience: population of Ukraine aged 18 and older
Sample size: 2000 respondents
Method: face-to-face formalized interviews
Sampling error: up to ±3% (for values around 50%), ±2.6% (around 30%), ±1.8% (around 10%)
Fieldwork: 2–10 March 2010
Regional breakdown:
- West: Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi
- Center: Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy
- North: Kyiv city, Kyiv Oblast, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv
- South: Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol
- East: Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv
- Donbas: Donetsk, Luhansk