Svoboda to break through Rada barrier: new poll

Nationalist political party Svoboda has the support of 7% of voters, according to a new opinion poll released by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, one of the most respected polling centers in Ukraine. It is the first major national poll to show Svoboda breaking the 5% barrier necessary to enter parliament. Meanwhile, Udar (led by Vitaliy Klitschko), for the second straight month was just one percentage point ahead of Fatherland (led by Arseniy Yatseniuk), 16% to 15%. Overall, opposition forces had an aggregate 38% of support from people who intended to vote (including Svoboda), which put them ahead of pro-presidential forces at 33%.

Political party support
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Party                                 Sept     Oct
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Party of Regions (Azarov)    22%    23%
Udar (Klitschko)                 14%    16%
Fatherland (Yatseniuk)        13%    15%
Communists (Symonenko)   9%     10%
Svoboda (Tyahnybok)          4%     7%
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Total opposition                  27%    38%
Total pro-presidential          31%    33%
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Note: Opposition includes Fatherland, Udar and Svoboda; Pro-presidential includes the Party of Regions and Communists. The September survey was conducted September 1-18 with 2,024 respondents and had a margin of error ±2.2%. The October survey was conducted September 18-October 4 with 2,043 respondents and had a margin of error ±2.2%.
Source: Kyiv International Institute of Sociology

Brad Wells: Svoboda looks to be drawing at this late stage in the campaign on undecided voters opposed to Regions and those that have become disenchanted with other opposition parties. Notably, these gains were not at the expense of other major political parties, suggesting the opposition could claim a much larger chunk of parliament than we have expected. While Svoboda is in rhetoric an opposition party, it has strong radical elements that might not necessarily play out as pro-democracy and has even been rumored to have been financed by individuals linked to the Party of Regions in order to split the opposition vote. We look for one of the other local polling agencies to release results to back these results.