Comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy has retained his commanding lead in the presidential race, with an almost 10 percentage point lead over his main rivals, President Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko , according to polls published by two agencies on March 28.
This was the final day polls can be published ahead of the March 31 vote, according to Ukrainian legislation.
The Rating Group research center found that 26.6 percent of decided voters would support Zelenskiy, while Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko now share second place, both on 17 percent.
Meanwhile, according to the research center, former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko of the Civic Position party will get 9.8 percent, pro-Russian candidate Yuriy Boyko 9.5 percent, Oleh Lyasko of the Radical Party 5.4 percent, Oleskandr Vilkul of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc 4 percent, former SBU security service head Ihor Smeshko 3.5 percent, and nationalist Ruslan Koshylinskiy 1.9 percent .
As for the expected runoff vote, which is scheduled for April 21: 41 percent of Ukrainians believe Zelenskiy will make it to the second round, while 38 percent think Tymoshenko and 37 percent Poroshenko will win through.
The Rating Group also asserts that Zelenskiy has the strongest electoral base among the young and middle-aged males living in cities in the central and southeastern regions of Ukraine, while Tymoshenko is most popular among elderly women living in rural central and western Ukraine. Poroshenko is mostly favored by people of both genders living in central and western Ukraine as well.
The polls predict a high turnout — according to the Rating Group, over 80 of respondents said they were willing to “participate in the presidential elections to some extent.”
However, Rating Group said one in six Ukrainians had not yet made a final decision on who they would vote for.
Another polling agency, the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, in poll results released later on March 28 also put Zelenskiy in the lead.
According to the think tank, 27.6 percent of decided voters will favor him on March 31, while Poroshenko gets 18.2 percent and Tymoshenko trails with 12.8 percent.
The poll predicts an even higher turnout of 85 percent on March 31.
However, according to the agency, Ukrainians have little faith in integrity of the elections: Only 31 percent believe that the voting will be honest, while 59 percent think the opposite.
