The electoral gap between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych has widened in favor of the latter

Press

02.06.2009

The electoral gap between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych has widened in favor of the latter

Over the past two months, support for the leader of the Party of Regions, Viktor Yanukovych, has increased the most, from 20.1% to 25.3%. Support for the leader of BYuT, Yulia Tymoshenko, has instead declined, from 16.8% to 15.9%.
Support for Arsenii Yatsenyuk has also increased slightly, from 12.2% to 13.2%.
Support for the incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko fluctuates at around 3–4%, for the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn at 6–7%, and for the leader of the Communists at 4–5%.
15.8% would vote “against all,” and 9.6% are undecided.
If elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were held next Sunday, five political forces would enter parliament: the Party of Regions (24.9%), BYuT (15.2%), the Yatsenyuk Bloc (10.4%), the Lytvyn Bloc (6.1%), and the Communist Party of Ukraine (5.4%).
Close to passing the 3% threshold are Our Ukraine (2.8%) and Svoboda (2.4%). 13.4% would vote “against all,” and 11.3% are undecided.
54% of respondents agree that parliament should dismiss the Minister of Internal Affairs, Yurii Lutsenko, while 34.3% disagree.
One third of respondents believe that trade unions in Ukraine primarily defend the interests of company management, and one in five believe they defend the interests of politicians. Only 15% of citizens think that trade unions defend the interests of ordinary workers, 16.6% believe they do not defend any interests at all, and 14.6% were unable to answer this question.
Accordingly, only 16.8% of respondents rated the activity of trade unions in Ukraine over the past six months positively, while 28.5% rated it negatively. At the same time, 37.2% of respondents think that trade unions in Ukraine play no role at all. 17.5% were undecided.

Methodology

The survey was conducted by Rating Group.

Fieldwork dates: 21–29 May 2009.
Sample size: 2,011 respondents aged 18 and older across all regions of Ukraine.
The margin of error does not exceed 3.3%.