West-central Ukraine favors EU, southeast favors Russia, poll reveals

With a few exceptions, Ukraine’s election campaign is
following a familiar pattern with western and central regions favoring
pro-Western parties and candidates, while the southeastern regions are Russian-oriented,
the latest poll confirms. The pro-EU Fatherland party led by Yulia Tymoshenko
is most popular in 10 of Ukraine’s 24 regional centers. The Russian-oriented
Opposition Bloc led by Yuriy Boyko is the leading party in six of the seven
regional centers in southeastern Ukraine (Kherson favored the Fatherland
party). The Solidarity Poroshenko Bloc leads in three regional centers, the
pro-EU/NATO nationalist Freedom party also leads in three centers while other
parties split the remaining cities.

About 53% of the residents of Ukraine’s regional
centers support EU integration, while 43% support NATO membership, another poll
revealed. The polls were part of the Fourth All-Ukrainian Municipal Survey
conducted in Ukraine’s 22 regional centers (as well as Mariupol and
Severodonetsk) by the Rating Sociological Service at the request of the
International Republican Institute. The survey, published on March 23, involved
1,900 respondents between Jan. 20 and Feb. 10.

Zenon Zawada: The
EuroMaidan that concluded in February 2014 was supposed to be Ukraine’s
breakthrough in convincing the public of the value of Euro-Atlantic
integration. Yet with a few exceptions, the political landscape has changed
little since then: the center-West remains pro-Western, while the southeast
remains Russian-oriented. Some other polls have indicated strengthening Western
sentiments, but it hasn’t been a convincing shift. For the lost momentum in
Ukraine, we blame the Poroshenko administration for failing to conduct systemic
reforms, for resisting the fight against corruption and for failing to raise
living standards.

We believe the emergence of a Russian-oriented
parliamentary opposition to be likely after the October 2019 elections.
Unfortunately, this will only help Putin’s hybrid war in Ukraine by providing a
wider forum for Kremlin narratives and talking points. Even more unfortunate
about this scenario is a Russian-oriented opposition would be replacing a
pro-Western opposition that is more aggressive on reforms than the current
pro-Western parties. For this reason, we believe the Poroshenko administration
is more interested in a Russian-oriented parliamentary minority than
pro-Western opposition.