Almost 70% of Ukrainians plan to vote in late October

Almost 70 percent of Ukrainians said they plan to participate in the Oct. 25 elections to elect local councils and their heads, according to a poll performed by GfK Ukraine between Aug. 1 and 14, in which 1,000 respondents were surveyed. About 45 percent of respondents said they will surely participate, while 24 percent said they will likely participate.

Zenon Zawada: Voter turnout of 70 percent would be impressive, but it’s likely to be less. We expect strong results for the Solidarity-Petro Poroshenko Bloc, simply as the patronage party, and Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party, which has the led the campaign against the Donbas specific order. The Svoboda nationalist party will remain competitive after agreeing to field candidates from the Praviy Sektor paramilitary organization. We also expect decent results for the Opposition Bloc in the eastern regions, particularly Kharkiv.

Unfortunately, we also expect an unusual amount of alleged fraud and violations, based on what was demonstrated in a highly contested election for a vacant parliamentary seat in July. The international community will likely turn a blind eye to the violations, given the need to support the current pro-Western government and the fact that these are local elections, not national.