Opposition parties gain ground in new opinion poll

Ukraine’s opposition parties continued to gain support according to a poll released on Wednesday by the Razumkov Center, one of the most respected polling centers and think tanks in Ukraine. Opposition parties (headed by jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko) drew a combined 38.3% of support, including votes for Ukraine’s second largest opposition party Front of Changes, which formally agreed to run on a joint list this week and several others. Ratings for pro-presidential forces declined 3.0 pp to 23.2% compared to the last survey (Dec. 2011).

Political party support

——————————————
Party                                  Dec 2011   Apr 2012 
——————————————
Fatherland (Tymoshenko)*      15.8%    19.6%
Party of Regions (Azarov)        13.9%    16.6%
Front of Changes (Yatseniuk)    9.6%        –
Udar (Klitschko)                      5.3%     8.5%
Communists (Symonenko)       5.3%     5.5%
——————————————
Against all                              12.1%        –
Undecided                              13.1%    18.5%
Do not intend to vote              12.1%    14.9%
——————————————
Total opposition                      36.2%    38.3%
Total pro-presidential              26.2%    23.2%
——————————————
* April 2012 figure includes Front of Changes, which agreed to run on a joint list. Note: Opposition & pro-presidential is an aggregate for all parties that received more than 1.0% of support in the poll. Opposition includes Fatherland (Tymoshenko Bloc + Front of Changes), Svoboda, Ukraine-Forward, Udar and Hromadyanska Pozytsya; Pro-presidential includes the Party of Regions, Communists and People’s Party. The survey was conducted April 14-19 with 2,008 respondents. Margin of error ±2.3%.
Source: Razumkov Center

Brad Wells: Ukraine’s opposition is expectedly continuing to look strong in opinion polls, but is far from running away from pro-presidential forces. According to the new election law in effect this year, 225 of the 450 seats in parliament in the October 28 election will determined by party lists, and the opposition should do well in this portion of the ballot. As we noted earlier this week, the key test will be their support on the constituency level where the remaining parliament seats will be determined. This section of the vote is slanted in the Party of Region’s favor, as it draws its support from the most densely populated regions of the country in the east. The other interesting trend is the high percentage of voters that remain either undecided or do not intend to vote – with the increase indicating the extremely high domestic apathy toward Ukraine’s current political parties and the election process itself.