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bne September 2018 Eastern Europe I 55
Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna party is leading parliamentary election polls.
and Svoboda with 4.1% have a chance of clearing the barrier.
Only 2.5% of respondents are ready to vote for the Agrarian Party, and the rat- ings of other parties are less than 2%.
However, the level of undecidedness is high and even Tymoshenko’s lead is not wide given the deep problems the coun- try faces. Almost one in six respondents said they were undecided.
Batkivshchyna and Poroshenko Bloc have relatively better indicators in all the macro regions of the country, with the exception of the eastern regions, while the Civil Position Party draws most of
its support from the western and central regions of Ukraine.
The Opposition Bloc (the rump of the ousted president Viktor Yanukovych’s Regions party) and For Life have strong positions in southern and eastern regions, while the Radical Party and the Servant of the People Party are more popular in central and south- ern regions. Samopomich and Svoboda are most popular in western regions.
The willingness to participate in the par- liamentary elections is lower than in the presidential elections: 46% of respon- dents are clearly going to vote, and every fourth person is more likely than not.
Seven political parties in the running for parliament seats in Ukraine's 2019 election
bne IntelliNews
Seven Ukrainian political parties are likely to clear the 5% thresh- old to win seats in next year’s par- liamentary elections, and two of those are in contention to lead the govern- ment, according to a poll by the Ratings pollster, released on August 7.
Opposition leader and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivsh- chyna (Fatherland) Party is currently leading the polls. Tymoshenko is also the front-runner in the concurrent presiden- tial election race in 2019.
Batkivshchyna commands the support of 19.5% of respondents who were asked who they would vote for if elections were held this Sunday. In second place is the Opposition Bloc with 11.4%, fol- lowed by the Civil Position Party with 11.2%, the Servant of the People Party with 10.5%, and the For Life Party with 7.2%, and the Radical Party with 7%. The eponymous Poroshenko Bloc Soli- darity of President Petro Poroshenko is trailing in seventh place with 6.5%.
The other political parties that have declared for the race would not over- come the 5% threshold to enter parlia- ment, although Samopomich with 4.3%
“The level of undecidedness is high and even Tymoshenko’s lead is not wide given the deep
problems the country faces”
Find more Eastern Europe content at www.bne.eu/eastern-europe
Selected headlines from past month:
· Belarus president accuses government officials of "heavy drinking"
· Putin plays the good cop and scales back pension reform (for women)
· Russia's Yandex to test run driverless cars in Tatarstan
· Russian tycoon Abramovich cuts stake in main TV channel, said to sell
Chelsea football club
www.bne.eu