Page 7 - bne IntelliNews Country Report: Ukraine Dec17

2.0 Politics
2.1 Poroshenko inches into polls lead
A new survey of public opinion released yesterday showed President Petro Poroshenko slightly ahead of his potential competitors for the presidency in 2019 , with 12% support among likely voters, being closely followed by opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko with 11%; musician Svyatoslav Vakarchuk with 9% (viewed by media and observers as a potential candidate, Vakarchuk himself has denied having political ambitions); and four others with 6-7% On potential parliamentary elections, 12% of respondents favoured Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party and 11% Poroshenko’s eponymous bloc, with five other largely opposition parties (ranging from 5-8%) making it above the 5% threshold. In both cases, over 25% of those intending to vote were undecided about their favourite party/presidential candidate.
In terms of foreign alliances, 45% of respondents spoke in favour of integration with the EU (vs. 10% favouring closer ties with Russia) and 43% supported Ukraine joining NATO (vs. 33% opposed).
In another interesting finding, respondents named among the most urgent issues requiring action the military conflict in the east (51%), rising prices (37%) and low salaries (36%) along with lack of jobs (27%), with corruption in the central government/judiciary/law enforcement/public institutions ranking much lower.
The poll’s electoral findings were broadly in line with recent similar nationwide measurements, though we should note the latest survey, a joint effort of four private firms, had a much larger sample (20,000 people were interviewed vs. c. 2,000 in regular surveys).
That said, the poll signalled tense campaigning ahead, with presidential elections almost certainly going into a runoff and parliamentary elections remaining at risk of producing as fragmented a legislature as the current one (especially if one considers that under current law, half of parliament is elected in single-seat constituencies). But with March 2019 presidential and October 2019 parliamentary elections still far away, there remaining quite a large number of undecided voters, and the final list of contenders and possible pre-election alliances no more than a matter of speculation at the moment, one shouldn’t read too much into individual ratings at this stage.
2.2 Two thirds of Ukrainians support Nato accession
Nearly two thirds (62%) of Ukrainians support the country’s accession to Nato. That represents a sharp change in attitudes, as while European Union (EU) membership has always been popular, the population was always more ambivalent about membership of Nato.
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze said that according to a recent poll 62% of
7 UKRAINE Country Report December 2017 www.intellinews.com