People’s Servant support continues to fall, latest poll says

Electoral support for The People’s Servant party is
continuing to fall, according to the latest poll released by the Kyiv Institute
of Sociology published on June 5. If parliament elections were held today, the
pro-presidential People’s Servant party would gain the most votes at 29.9%.
That’s compared to 32.6% in mid-April and 39.1% in late February. The party has
split into different political orientations in recent months. About 15.8% of
the electorate would vote for the Putinist Opposition Platform For Life led by
natural gas trader Yuriy Boyko, 13.5% for the pro-NATO European Solidarity
party led by former President Petro Poroshenko, and 11.6% for the anti-IMF
Fatherland party led by former PM Yulia Tymoshenko.

Several parties have become competitive in recent
weeks, according to the same poll. Among the rising parties is Strength and
Honor, which enjoys 6.9% support and is led by former Security Service of
Ukraine (SBU) Head Ihor Smeshko. It’s actively promoted on television by Kyiv
media star Dmitry Gordon and has a pro-NATO position. The poll-oriented Radical
Party has 4.9% support. It was launched by Oleh Liashko, who announced on June
5 that he will compete for the parliamentary mandate vacated by Valeriy
Davydenko, who is believed to have been murdered on May 23. The nationalist
Freedom party would earn 4.7% in a parliamentary vote. The poll was conducted
between Apr. 26 and 30 among 1,507 respondents. 

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitshcko announced on his Facebook
page on June 5 that he has declined the invitation of former President
Poroshenko to compete for re-election in October with the European Solidarity
party. Instead, he said he will compete in the October local elections
representing the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform party that he
created. The party will also compete for the Kyiv City Council, he said.

Zenon Zawada: With
dissatisfaction with the current government growing, Ukrainians are looking for
more alternatives beyond the People’s Servant party, which has split into
diverging groups (both pro-Western and pro-Russian), as well as beyond the
traditional parties of the last five years. We expect these traditional parties
(Opposition Platform, European Solidarity, Fatherland) the majority of The
People’s Servant’s defectors. And we don’t expect the alternative parties
(Strength and Honor, Radical Party, Freedom) to gain strong results in the
October local elections. But they serve as a solid indicator of rising voter
dissatisfaction with the status quo.

As for Klitschko, his decision to avoid European
Solidarity – as he did in 2015 – is entirely understandable considerable given
the abysmally low trust ratings for its head, former President Poroshenko.
Indeed, much of the support for the party is largely due to its staunchly
pro-NATO position, which Klitschko doesn’t need in local politics. In the past
five years, Klitschko also hasn’t been able to expand his political appeal onto
the national scale and we don’t expect he will be able to do so. So competing
in the local elections with his party makes sense, and we expect he will be
re-elected.