Three political parties lead in the latest polls published by the Razumkov Center and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, two prominent Kyiv-based pollsters. But the polls disagree on the order of the three leaders.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant on the People party leads in the Razumkov Center poll conducted from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5 using face-to-face interviews.
The poll concludes that, if parliamentary elections were to take place soon, 28% of decided respondents would vote for Servant of the People, whose faction currently has a 246-member majority in the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. In the July 2019 parliamentary election, the party won 43% of the vote.
The European Solidarity party (27 seats in parliament) led by former President Petro Poroshenko is in second place with 21% support. The pro-Russian Opposition Platform – For Life party (44 seats in parliament) is third with 16.5% support.
The 24-member Batkivshchyna party led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is fourth with 8% support. Other parties have less than 5% support, the minimum required to enter the parliament during elections.
The Syla i Chest (Strength and Honor) party led by former Security Service chief Ihor Smeshko has 4.8% support, the nationalistic Svoboda party has 3.9% and the liberal Voice party has 2.6%. Shariy’s Party, led by pro-Russian blogger Anotoly Shariy, has 2.2% of support.
Another poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology over the phone on Oct. 17-24 and Nov. 5-8 paints a slightly different picture of party ratings.
According to this poll, the Opposition Platform – For Life party would get the highest level of support with 22.1% of respondents saying that they would vote for it if the elections were to take place soon.
The European Solidarity party is second with 19% support, while Servant of the People is third with 19%. Batkivshchyna has 9.3% support, Syla i Chest has 6.6% and the Radical Party has 5.4%. Just below the 5% threshold are Voice with 4.7%, Ukrainian Strategy with 3.7%, Svoboda with 3.3% and Shariy’s Party with 2.9%.
The two polls agree more on the ratings of presidential candidates.
According to the Razumkov Center poll, Zelensky leads the ratings with 31.2% support among decided voters. Poroshenko trails behind with 21% and Yuriy Boyko, the pro-Russian leader of Opposition Platform – For Life, has 16.9% support. Tymoshenko has 8.3%, Smeshko has 5.6% and nationalist leader of Svoboda Ruslan Koshulynskyi has 2.8% support.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology also says that Zelensky leads in the ratings among decided voters with 33%, while Poroshenko trails behind with 17%. Tymoshenko is third with 11%, Boyko is fourth with 10.5% and Smeshko is fifth with 9.5% support. The poll also includes Viktor Medvedchuk with 8.8% support. He is the head of Opposition Platform – For Life’s political council and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man in Ukraine.
The next parliamentary elections in Ukraine are set to take place In October 2023, while the next presidential elections are scheduled for March 2024.
Controversial poll
After the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s poll was published, journalists and experts called its accuracy into question. Ukrainian news website Liga.Net reported that, according to the institute, the poll was ordered by political consultants who frequently appear as “experts” on TV channels owned by a member of the Opposition Platform, the same party that unexpectedly took first place in the poll.
The same poll also featured a question that was criticized as manipulative. The question asked people whether they supported “negotiations with Russia and separatists in Donbas” to end the war in eastern Ukraine. The question packaged together two options — one viewed as normal (negotiations with Russia) and one (negotiations with separatists) that many oppose, including the Ukrainian government. As a result, 51% of participants responded positively, seemingly supporting the idea of negotiating with Russia-controlled separatists in Donbas.
