Tymoshenko and her party have the most support in Ukraine, poll reports

Former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko is the leading presidential candidate currently, according to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology that was released on June 9. She would earn 24 percent of votes, compared to 14 percent for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and she would win in a second-round runoff against Poroshenko. Nearly 13 percent would vote for Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, 12.5 percent for populist Oleh Liashko, and 12 percent for Russian-oriented oligarch Yuriy Boyko.

If parliamentary elections were held, Tymoshenko’s populist Fatherland party would earn 22 percent of votes, 13 percent of voters for the Poroshenko Bloc, 12 percent for the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc, 11.2 percent for Liashko’s Radical Party, 11.1 percent for the reforms-oriented Self Reliance party and five percent for the reforms-oriented Civic Position. The poll was conducted between May 20 and June 2 involving 2,043 respondents throughout the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at the order of an anonymous client.

Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko hasn’t reached the middle of his presidential term and the public is already looking for an alternative. Indeed Tymoshenko and her entourage smell blood, being well aware of the public sentiment, and are continuing their campaign attacking the president and his party for sharp utility rate hikes (as demanded by Western structures), which has been driving their support. 

What’s particularly interesting about this poll is that Nadiya Savchenko was released on May 25, in the middle of the polling period. Yet the president didn’t seem to have gained any boost in his ratings, despite having worked to arrange her release. Instead, any popular ratings bump went to Tymoshenko and her party, which recruited Savchenko as an MP while she was in prison.