Poroshenko, Tymoshenko parties continue leading polls, KIIS reports

According to a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) report on Feb. 23, the parties of president Petro Poroshenko and ex-prime minister Yuliya Tymosheko would be leaders in parliamentary elections in February 2016. Among the respondents who are ready to vote, 16.6% would vote for Poroshenko’s party and 15.1% for Tymoshenko’s. These parties preserved their leading positions, but also lost the most support as compared to KIIS’s September poll, when they had 19.9% and 18.8%, respectively. The Opposition Block party, which is largely thought to be a reincarnation of the pro-Yanukovych Party of Regions, gained the most since September – in February it could have won 14.2% of the vote (vs. 11.0% in September). A liberal Self-Reliance party would garner 11.8% of the vote in February (vs. 12.8% in September); the populist Lyashko Radical Party would win 10.3% of votes (7.4%); nationalist Svoboda Party would get 6.2% (3.2%) and the liberal Civic Position would get  5.3% (4.0%).

Interestingly, all the above listed parties, except Poroshenko’s, gained significantly vs. the October 2014 parliamentary elections. The prime minister’s party People’s Front, which was number one in the 2014 elections with a 22.1% support rate, is the biggest loser, with 2.5% support, based on the KIIS February poll.

The pro-reform movement of Georgian ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili would have 3.6% of the vote in February, below the 5.0% threshold needed to be in the parliament.

KIIS conducted its poll among 2020 respondents in all regions of Ukraine, except Crimea, on Feb. 5 – Feb. 16.

Alexander Paraschiy: The good news from the recent poll is that parties with pro-western rhetoric remain popular among the majority of Ukrainians. What’s not so encouraging is that possible early parliamentary election won’t significantly change the distribution of parliamentary seats and is unlikely to change the membership of the coalition. That can be used by the current power brokers as one of the key arguments against early parliamentary elections, which still look very probable in the second half of this year.