The nation's voters are deeply disappointed with the government, amid widespread corruption and further erosion of living standards. At the same time, many are still committed to European ideals of liberal democracy and believe in the power of civic activism.
These are the main findings of a recent survey commissioned by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C that promotes democracy worldwide. The survey was conducted in September ahead of local elections scheduled for Oct. 25. The results were released on Oct. 13.
The survey didn’t poll residents in Russian-annexed Crimea and Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Earlier responses from these oblasts in similar surveys were discarded in order to make data from previous years comparable with the latest findings.
With 36 percent of voters undecided, and 4 percent refusing to answer, the survey had the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko polling at a national average of 13 percent ahead of the Oct. 25 local elections. At 11 percent, Yulia Tymoshenko Batkivshchyna party was in second place, followed by Samopomych at 8 percent. Meanwhile, the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko was at 6 percent, and the Opposition Bloc at 4 percent. The remaining 14 percent was shared among other smaller parties.
Dissatisfaction
With
the memory of the sacrifices made during the EuroMaidan Revolution
still fresh for millions, the underlying data in the survey should be a
wake-up call for the government that took over from ousted President
Viktor Yanukovych.
Only 5 percent of voters said that current
authorities have done well in meeting the demands of the EuroMaidan
civic movement – mainly to usher in the rule of law and stamp out
corruption. A whopping 56 percent said that the country “is heading in
the wrong direction,” up from 42 percent in 2014.
Dissatisfaction
reached a post-revolutionary peak of 61 percent in June, and then
improved to 56 percent in the September survey.
Source:
IFES
Ukrainians have mostly felt that the nation has been heading in the wrong direction since October 2008, although optimism peaked during the 2013-14 EuroMaidan Revolution that prompted President Viktor Yanukovych to flee.
Source:
IFES
Support for democracy has been eroding since its high of 65 percent in September 2014, but remains strong.
Insisting on democracy
The public hasn’t abandoned the idea of democracy. The survey found that support for liberal democracy remained strong, although it was down from a 65 percent peak in September 2014 to 49 percent 12 months later. The EuroMaidan Revolution also appears to have focused the public’s attention more on fundamental liberal ideas. Some 42 percent prioritized them over economic well-being, up from 36 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, 37 percent prioritized economic development, while 21 percent gave no definitive response.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, advocacy manager at the Reanimation Package of Reforms civic initiative, said the survey showed a distinct move to values of democracy and goal-oriented cooperation. The volunteer movement that grew up in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine illustrates that trend, he said.
Yurchyshyn said the public is ready for more hardship, but doesn’t trust the government. Instead of building alliances with civic society, the country’s leaders seem to be indulging in public relations, he said. Seeing politicians at the war front and the president in a war plane doesn’t impress the public, Yurchyshyn said.
Civic activism
The drop to 49 percent support for democracy reflects public dissatisfaction with the status quo as “many Ukrainians chiefly associate democracy with socio-economic benefits rather than the rights intrinsic to a democracy,” IFES said in notes accompanying its survey.
Support for democracy is still well above the 38 percent level recorded in an IFES’s 2013 survey, during the last year of the Yanukovych regime. Furthermore, 41 percent of the public can still be “characterized as strong democrats who emphasize democracy and democratic rights, and who want to maintain these rights despite the significant challenges facing the country,” IFES found. The survey results give hope for further growth in the “the democratic value of self-organization” in Ukraine, Yurchyshyn added.
But Rakesh Sharma, the director of Monitoring and Evaluation and Public Opinion Research at IFES, said he was uncertain how much longer the nation would be prepared to support democracy, given that corruption is still just as bad as before the EuroMaidan Revolution.
“Authoritarian rule, or what we should call Yanukovych’s non-democratic rule, hasn’t proved effective here in Ukraine. But what’s the alternative if reforms don’t move forward?” Sharma asked.
Russia and West
The survey confirmed that the aspirations of those who took part in the EuroMaidan Revolution were essentially liberal.
Some 60 percent said that the protests aimed “to reduce corruption,” 54 percent said they were for “greater integration with the rest of Europe,” 44 percent said the aim was to reduce the undue influence of oligarchs over the nation, and 39 percent said that the movement was fighting for liberal values and equality before the law.
But only 5-15 percent said they had seen improvements on any of these fronts since the revolution.
While support for closer political and economic relations with Europe has dropped from 59 percent in June, 49 percent still favor Ukraine’s westward reorientation, while only 8 percent said the country would be better off having closer relations with Russia.
Source:
IFES
As the second anniversary of the start of the EuroMaidan Revolution approaches, the public’s desire for closer relations with Europe remains high.
East vs. west
The much-hyped gap between Ukrain’s eastern and western regions on fundamental political issues has also narrowed, according to the IFES survey. Only slightly more people in the east – 30 percent – said that Ukraine wasn’t a democracy at all, compared to the national average of 23 percent.
Nationwide, 63 percent said that Ukraine was a democracy, albeit with “minor” or “major” problems.
Furthermore, support for closer ties with Russia was down to 14 and 16 percent, respectively, in the south and east, excluding the Donbas, compared to an 8 percent national average.
Support for closer ties with Europe, however, was still significantly greater in western Ukraine, at 71 percent, compared to 29 percent in eastern Ukraine.
Kyiv Post staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen can be reached at [email protected]
