Rating of politicians for the position of prime minister

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16.03.2010

Rating of politicians for the position of prime minister

If in March 2010 elections for Prime Minister had been held in Ukraine and Viktor Yanukovych (as President of the country) and Yulia Tymoshenko (as leader of the opposition) had not run for this position, Serhiy Tihipko would have won a convincing victory (39.4%). It should be noted that support for Tihipko for the post of Prime Minister is three times higher than his rating in the presidential election (13.05%).
In second place would be the current head of government Mykola Azarov (15.6%), and in third place Arseniy Yatsenyuk (14.9%).
Next in the ranking were former President Viktor Yushchenko (3.4%), Rinat Akhmetov (2.1%), Borys Kolesnikov (0.8%), Yuriy Yekhanurov (0.8%), Yuriy Boyko (0.2%) and Andriy Klyuyev (0.1%). 3.9% of respondents would support another candidate, 8% would support none, and 11% were undecided.
Respondents in all regions except Donbas gave first place to Tihipko, while in Donbas he shared first place with Azarov. Yatsenyuk received his highest support in the West.
While supporters of Strong Ukraine, Front for Change, and Our Ukraine gave overwhelming preference to their leaders — respectively Tihipko (86%), Yatsenyuk (82.4%), and Yushchenko (56.8%) — supporters of the Party of Regions were almost evenly split between Tihipko (37.6%) and Azarov (35.3%).
Azarov won only among Communist Party supporters — 29.6% versus 25.9% for Tihipko.
Tihipko was preferred by 39.6% of BYuT supporters, 24.2% of Svoboda, and 16.2% of Our Ukraine supporters.
In turn, Yatsenyuk received 23.5% of the “votes” of BYuT supporters, 39.4% of Svoboda, and 18.9% of Our Ukraine.
The highest support for the current Vice Prime Minister was recorded among young people and those of middle age. The higher the level of education, the higher the level of support for Tihipko for Prime Minister.
It is interesting that Rinat Akhmetov is also seen as Prime Minister mainly by young people.
Azarov and Tihipko received more support in cities, while Yatsenyuk and Yushchenko — in villages.
Unlike Tihipko, who received fairly even support among respondents by native language and nationality, Azarov was supported by five times fewer Ukrainian-speaking respondents than Russian-speaking ones, and by 2.5 times fewer Ukrainians than Russians.
Yatsenyuk, on the contrary, has significantly greater support among Ukrainian-speaking people and Ukrainians.
(!) Note: the fieldwork ended on March 10, that is, on the eve of the official appointment of Azarov as Prime Minister and Tihipko as Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Methodology

Study audience: population of Ukraine aged 18 and older.
Sample size: 2000 respondents.
Method: face-to-face formalized interview.
Sampling error: for values close to 50% — no more than 3%; close to 30% — no more than 2.6%; close to 10% — no more than 1.8%.
Fieldwork dates: March 2–10, 2010.
Regional breakdown:
- West: Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Chernivtsi
- Center: Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy
- North: Kyiv city, Kyiv region, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv
- South: AR Crimea, Odesa, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sevastopol
- East: Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv
- Donbas: Donetsk, Luhansk