Editor’s Note: As the March presidential elections in Ukraine draw ever closer, more and more polls of voting intentions are being published. According to the latest poll, comedy actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy is now in the lead with 28 percent of the vote, while sitting President Petro Poroshenko is in second place with 18 percent, and Batkivshchyna leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is in the third place, with 15 percent. But how much do the public trust Ukraine’s polls?
Iryna Ivanishchieva, student
“I once participated in a small survey with a hundred other people. We had to choose a presidential candidate for whom we would vote. These data then coincided with existing official data, that’s why I trust the results of pre-election polls.”
Serhii Khovrych, researcher
“I generally do not trust them, because they are all probably paid for. If we are talking about academic research centers, then there is some kind of trust in what they do. If these are the centers that are funded by someone, we need to be aware of corruption, as many people get small salaries and therefore they are easily seduced by money. I have more trust in European and American sociological centers.”
Liudmyla Demchenko, retiree
“Not at all. I read somewhere that, for example, Tymoshenko bribes mass media to inflate her numbers. The situation with Zelensky is also very weird. Is our electorate so naive that it does not understand that show business is one thing, and politics, the presidency is quite another?”
Volodymyr Chakhoian, works in education
“I trust them 70 percent. Some political forces, in any case, fund the sociological centers that conducts these surveys. This may definitely affect the result of the poll.
I keep an eye on the results of the surveys only during the elections, when the exit polls are held. I find it interesting to compare the data obtained from voting stations and exit polls.”
Tetiana Lahunova, retiree
“No, a thousand times no! I come from Nikolaev, and when we were electing a mayor, two people reached the second round. One of them had a very high rating, and another had a low one. The candidate with low rating won the election. Therefore, these results do not always correspond to reality. I think it is a fraud.”
Petro Svyrydenko, works in agriculture
“It depends on who conducted these polls, and I will trust more data obtained by the state sociological centers. It is funny, though, that some of the presidential candidates look at the results of pre-election polls and claim that they have already won the election. In general, I try not to follow these surveys, because it’s such a dirty thing.”
Hanna Kashyna, university teacher
“Absolutely not, 100 percent no. There are many reasons for this. The main one is that I have a certain amount of life experience. I know where these polls come from, since I myself was once engaged in polling. However, I’m likely to trust the results obtained by foreign sociological centers.”
