Political satirist Volodymyr Zelenskiy will receive 71.4 percent of the vote in the second round of the presidential election, according to a poll by Rating sociological group, conducted on April 5-10 and published on April 11.
Zelenskiy’s rival in the run-off vote – incumbent President Petro Poroshenko – would take only 28.6 percent of the votes of those who said they would come to the polling stations and who have made up their minds who to vote for, the poll results showed.
More than 10 percent of those polled said they would not vote, and 14.8 percent who plan to vote in the run-off said they are yet to decide whom they would vote for.
In the first round on March 31, Zelenskiy received 30 percent of vote and Poroshenko almost 16 percent.
According to the poll, 61 percent of respondents now believe Zelenskiy will be Ukraine’s next president. Only 17 percent said it would be Poroshenko.
According to the poll, Zelenskiy wins in all the regions and among all the age groups, although his support is highest in the south, east, and center of Ukraine.
Poroshenko still maintains high support in western Ukraine (34 percent) and is popular among people in the 50 to 59-year-old age group (25 percent support.)
Asked about their motive for voting, 60 percent of the Zelenskiy supporters said they wanted to protest against the current situation in the country. Zelenskiy’s campaign presents him as a new face able to replace the old political elite and bring about change.
Almost 40 percent of Poroshenko’s supporters said they would vote for the president as a way to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Poroshenko or Putin” is a slogan used in Poroshenko’s current campaign, which highlights the danger of Russian aggression.
While both Ukrainian and foreign observers found the election on March 31 mostly free and fair, 17 percent of respondents of the poll said they knew of cases of vote buying. Some 8 percent said they had seen it personally, and 9 percent said they had heard about vote buying from their acquaintances.
Another 39 percent of those polled said they expected large-scale election falsification in the second round.
The poll quizzed 3,000 people for all over Ukraine, apart from in Russian-occupied areas, via face-to-face interviews. Its margin of error is no more than 1.8 percent.
