Political satirist and actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy is pulling ahead of the pack, according to a new poll published on March 4 by sociological group Rating.
According to the poll, Zelenskiy now has 25.1 percent of voters, six percentage points higher than a month ago and 9 percentage points ahead of his closed rivals — President Petro Poroshenko with 16.6 percent of support and Tymoshenko with 16.2 percent support, the poll found.
The poll’s margin of error was plus/minus 2 percent. Rating polled 2,500 people in one-on-one interviews all over Ukraine on Feb. 19-28.
The next three top candidates in the crowded field of 42 presidential hopefuls are Yuriy Boyko, a former minister of fuel and energy under ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, with 11.3 percent, Anatoliy Grytsenko, a former defense minister, with 7.7 percent, and Oleh Lyashko, the leader of Radical Party, with 5.6 percent.
Poroshenko’s rating has slightly increased over the last month (by about 1.5 percent), as has Boyko’s. Tymoshenko has lost about 2 percent, according to the poll.
The number of undecided voters has increased from 15 percent to 25 percent over the last month, during which there have been several political scandals. Tymoshenko and Poroshenko have accused each other of vote buying, and investigative journalism program Nashi Groshi on Feb. 25 alleged it had evidence that the son of one of Poroshenko’s allies was embezzling money from the defense budget.
Forecasts of second-round voting indicate that Zelenskiy would beat both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko, while Poroshenko would lose to both Tymoshenko and Zelenskiy.
Nevertheless, the largest share of those polled (24 percent) believes that Poroshenko will be the next president. The 19 percent think it will be Tymoshenko, and 17 percent that it will be Zelenskiy.
The poll also showed that the ratings of both Zelenskiy and Tymoshenko could grow up to 7 percent, as many people named them as their second choice if their candidate decided to withdraw from the election. Poroshenko’s rating would grow up to 4 percent this way.
The poll included Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadoviy with 3 percent of support. Sadoviy announced on March 1 that he would not run for president, and publicly endorsed Grytsenko.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko believes this will boost Grytsenko by about 1.5 percent – even more if some voters desert Poroshenko after the recent corruption scandals and switch to Grytsenko.
Fesenko wrote in his blog that if Grytsenko improves his lackluster campaign he might even be able to return to being one of top three candidates – his position back in late summer and early autumn.
But Zenon Zawada, a political analyst at Concorde Capital investment bank, said that Sadoviy’s support would have helped Grytsenko if it had happened in autumn, but not now.
“This is another case of too little, too late in these elections,” Zawada said in a report issued by the bank on March 4.
