Tymoshenko widely supported throughout Ukraine, poll reveals

Yulia Tymoshenko has maintained her wide lead among
candidates competing in the March 31 presidential elections, according to one
of the most comprehensive polls conducted so far, published on Dec. 26. The
former prime minister and political prisoner has 20.8% support among decided
voters, compared to 13.4% for comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy and 11.1% for
President Petro Poroshenko. In comparison, 21.0% of decided voters think
Tymoshenko will win, compared to 12.8% who believe Poroshenko will win and only
5% who believe Zelenskiy will win. About 50.3% of those polled said they will
not vote for Poroshenko under any conditions, compared to 26.4% for Tymoshenko
and 10.0% for Zelenskiy.

 

Tymoshenko is the leading candidate in 21 of Ukraine’s
24 regions, the poll revealed. Yuriy Boyko, the head of the Russian-oriented
Opposition Platform For Life party, leads the polls in Ukraine’s three
easternmost regions: Kharkiv, Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk and
Ukrainian-controlled Luhansk. Boyko is polling fourth overall at 9.6%.

 

About 51% of those polled believe that vote fraud will
occur at the central level, and 41% believe it will occur at the regional
level. The poll was conducted by the Rating Sociological Group between Nov. 16
and Dec. 10 involving 40,000 respondents.

 

Zenon Zawada: This poll
serves as a valuable benchmark with the official start of the presidential
campaign set for Dec. 31. It is also valuable because it’s so comprehensive,
whereas the standard poll involves 2,000 respondents. It confirms that most of
the polls conducted so far have been largely accurate in depicting Tymoshenko
as having a consistently wide lead over Poroshenko. It also confirms Zelenskiy
as the most popular alternative to the standard Ukrainian politicians,
representing a protest vote in our view.

 

To us, the most important information from this poll
is not only Tymoshenko’s wide lead over her opponents, which she has
consistently enjoyed since the spring. Even more striking is her lead in most
of Ukraine’s regions, indicating that her message of economic relief and plans
for radical structural changes (including rewriting the Constitution) appeals
to a wide spectrum of Ukrainians, who traditionally had been divided between
those Russian-oriented (in the southeast regions) and Western-oriented (in the
central-west).

 

These poll results are quite negative for Poroshenko,
who has three months to somehow convince Ukrainians that he is the better
choice to continue leading the country among ongoing Russian military
aggression. The process of creating the canonical Orthodox Church of Ukraine –
whose official recognition will be finalized on Jan. 6 – hasn’t impressed
Ukrainians, who are more concerned about their economic condition.

 

Something dramatic has to happen in the next three
months for the president’s popularity to rise, moreover at Tymoshenko’s
expense. Potentially violent conflicts over church property will only turn the
public against Poroshenko. In our view, the public will dramatically turn
towards Poroshenko only in the event of a Russian military strike on Ukrainian
territory. The president’s other option is to use such military strikes as a
pretext to postpone the elections indefinitely. A third option for the
president is to attempt to manipulate the vote results, but that will be impossible
if the gap remains nearly 10% as it is currently.

 

We believe the president is considering these options
for many reasons, the most obvious being that he wants to retain power and
doesn’t want to relinquish it to his longtime political nemesis. In addition,
most of Ukraine’s elites, particularly the military leadership, are utterly
opposed to a Tymoshenko presidency and all the destabilization that it could
bring.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is well aware that he
will be helping Poroshenko’s re-election prospects with another attack on
Ukraine, similar to what occurred on Nov. 25. And he prefers Tymoshenko
becoming president. So any Russian military strike, instigated or not, will
most likely be designed to undermine any remaining support for Poroshenko.
Therefore, it will be devastating and humiliating. Which is something the
president is likely taking into account as well.