Tymoshenko widens lead as Poroshenko stalls behind, poll says

Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister and
political prisoner, has improved her lead among Ukraine’s presidential
candidates, according to the latest poll released on Aug. 8 by the Rating
Sociological Group. Of voters who intend to vote and have decided on their
candidate, Tymoshenko has 17.7% support, widening her lead to seven percentage
points ahead of the second-place candidate (compared to a four-point lead in
June). Her Fatherland party has 19.5% support for the October 2019
parliamentary elections.

Former defense minister Anatoliy Grytsenko has 10.7%
support, while his Civic Position party has 11.2%. The Russian-oriented former energy
minister Yuriy Boyko has 8.9% support, while his Opposition Bloc party has
11.4%. The agrarian populist Oleh Lyashko has 8.5% support, while his Radical
Party has 7.0%. President Poroshenko has 8.3% support, while his Solidarity
party has 6.5%.

Playing the role of the elections wild card, the
People’s Servant party, led by comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has 10.5% support
among those who intend to vote and have decided. The For Life party with ties
to Russian President Putin has 7.2% support. About 17% of those polled have yet
to decide for whom they will cast their ballot for, while 15% don’t plan to
participate in the elections at all.

In all, 54.7% of votes would be cast for pro-Western
parties, while 18.6% would be cast for Russian-oriented parties.

The poll was conducted between July 20 and Aug. 3
involving 2,000 respondents.

Zenon Zawada: The
president’s campaign sown in April to establish a single canonical Ukrainian
Orthodox Church has reaped a poor harvest among the electorate. They confirm our view that
Ukrainians are more interested in improved economic conditions, rather than
playing church politics. The leading candidate, Yulia Tymoshenko, is well known
for using government levers to provide the public with social payments, which
is why she remains popular.

The president still has at his disposal the 2019
budget to raise various social payments and subsidies to boost his support. But
we don’t believe it will be enough to revive his dismal re-election prospects.
It is worth watching to see whether the Presidential Administration will apply
hard-handed tactics to improve its results and undermine the performance of
rivals, as it is alleged to have begun
doing already. This will only destabilize the political situation further and
we believe Western authorities are warning Poroshenko not to play with fire.