Interfax: Yanukovych, Klitschko have highest presidential ratings – study

KYIV. Feb 3 (Interfax) – Ukraine’s incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych and Vitaly Klitschko, leader of the party UDAR, have the most chances of making it to the second round of presidential elections, shows a study entitled “Ukrainian Residents’ Evaluation of the Socio-Political Situation in the Country as of January 2014.

The study was conducted by the social technologies institute Sociopolis for the Situations Simulation Agency on January 16-30, 2014. It surveyed 1,650 respondents (permanent residents of Ukraine) in more than eighty populated areas in all regions of Ukraine.

The study, whose results were presented by Alexei Golobutsky, deputy director of the Situations Simulation Agency, at a press conference in Interfax, shows that 18.4% of the respondents are ready to support Yanukovych and 17.6% are ready to support Klitscho in the presidential elections.

The current situation is very different from the previous presidential elections, Golobutsky said. “Yanukovych has the highest rating of all presidents in the last years of their terms and he remains a popular politician,” the expert said.

Sociologists believe Klitschko has kept his rating high by successful positioning. “Klitschko’s tendency to speak in vague terms remains his strong point,” Golobutsky said.

The third most popular presidential candidate after Yanukovych and Klitschko is parliamentarian Pyotr Poroshenko (9.5% of the respondents said they would vote for him).

Golobutsky believes Poroshenko’s rating went up due to the fall of the rating of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, leader of the parliamentary faction Batkivshchina. The expert also said Poroshenko’s ratings may fall as quickly as it rose because the situation in the country is changing rapidly.

The level of support of other potential presidential candidates (Yatsenyuk, Communist Party leader Pyotr Simonenko, Oleg Tyagnibok, leader of the association Svoboda, parliamentarian Anatoly Hritsenko, parliamentarian Oleh Lyashko, ex-president Viktor Yushchenko, parliamentarian Inna Bogoslovskaya, acting social policies minister Natalya Korolevskaya, and Viktor Medvedchuk, leader of the public movement Ukrainian Choice) is currently much lower than the level of support of the three most popular presidential candidates.