Zelensky core electorate is youth, urban residents, survey says

The core electorate
of The People’s Servant party, loyal to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
consists of youth and urban residents, according to post-election survey
results published on July 30. About 58.8% of voters between 18 and 29 years old
voted for The People’s Servant party, the survey said, and about 47.6% of
residents of cities with a population of 100K and more. The People’s Servant
was also noticeably more popular among women and appealed to voters of all
levels of education, the survey said. It was most popular in the central and
southern regions. The poll was based on the National Exit Poll organized by
three leading polling firms: the Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Fund, the
Razumkov Center for Economic and Political Research and the Kyiv International
Institute for Sociology.

Zenon Zawada: These survey results confirm that a
dramatic shift in social and political attitudes has occurred among the
residents of Ukraine’s southeastern regions, who have traditionally been
Russian-oriented. Only 16.7% of the voters of the southern regions, which
include Ukraine’s third-largest city of Odesa, voted for the Putinist
Opposition Platform For Life party, compared to 50.2% for The People’s Servant.
Meanwhile, only 2.6% of Ukrainian voters nationwide between 18 and 29 years old
voted for the Opposition Platform, compared to 20.1% of voters aged 60 years
and older.

These trends are
very bad for Russian President Putin, who is using the warfare in Donbas to try
to keep Ukraine in Russia’s geopolitical sphere of influence. For the younger
generation of southeastern Ukrainians, who are Russian culturally but also
tolerant of Ukrainian culture, issues of language and religion – as promoted by
Putin’s Russian World project – are irrelevant to their political
decision-making. In voting for The People’s Servant, they are more interested
in pragmatic issues that can be addressed with Western integration: functioning
courts, renewed infrastructure, free markets, and the ability for economic
advancement. Indeed, five years after the EuroMaidan, this survey confirms that
Western values have triumphed in the otherwise Russophile regions of Ukraine.

We are confident the U.S. government is well aware of these trends and
understands that it can defeat Putinist authoritarianism with the
implementation of Western ideals (rule of law, free markets, social
liberalism), not military force. The Zelensky administration understands this
as well, which is why it has announced plans for a global Russian-language
television network to promote Western neoliberal ideals. If Zelensky remains on
the course that has been set and gains success in major structural reforms in
Ukraine, his presidency will not only ensure Ukraine’s independence, but could
also become instrumental in defeating Putin’s Russian World project.