Page 17 - UKRRptDec19

A new poll found that two out of five Ukrainians are willing to give the inexperienced president several years to make progress​. About 41% of Ukrainians believe President Zelenskiy needs at least three years to demonstrate quality and effective results, according to a poll published on November 28 by the Rating Sociological Group. Another 28% of Ukrainians, or 69% in total, believe Zelenskiy needs at least a year to show results. About 53% of Ukrainians believe Zelenskiy has been more effective as president than his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. Only 15% believe he has been less effective as president. The poll was conducted between November 20 and 24 involving 2,500 respondents.
The approval rating of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has tumbled 21% in the last two months ​as he begins to grapple with the really painful reforms and runs up against his first real obstacles, according to poll by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) released on November 28. The honeymoon with international investors was already over after former National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) governor Valeria​ ​Gontareva’s house was burnt down in an arson attack on September 16​. However, these problems did not affect Zelenskiy popularity until now as the population is more concerned with inflation, jobs and utility prices than the ins and outs of who stole what from, which bank that holds international investor’s attention. But with a Normandy Four meeting (Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany) in the next 10 days and an economy that is now spluttering, the difficulties in turning Ukraine now are inevitably starting to eat into Zelenskiy sky high approval rating. “At the end of November, 52% of respondents positively relate to Vladimir Zelenskiy, 19% negatively. During the fall, the proportion of those who are positive towards Zelenskiy decreased: 73% in September, 66% in October, 64% in early November, 52% in late November,” KIIS reported in its survey. The proportion of those who are negative about President Zelenskiy has grown by 12%, to 19%.
A new poll indicates majorities of Ukrainians do not support three key free-market initiatives of the Zelenskiy administration. ​In a nationwide poll completed last week, 58% of 2,041 people interviewed do not support the creation of a farmland market, 55% do not support the privatization of large state companies, and 49% do not support the legalization of gambling. Support for these three measures were: 24% for the land market; 22% for selling big state companies; and 38% for gambling. Only the legalization of amber mining won a majority – 71%. The poll was conducted by the Ilk Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Fund with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) released an interesting poll on October 29th with three questions dedicated to the land reform​, and especially the methodological comment that KMIS added to them. The poll-supported narrative related to the land reform has, for years, been that Ukrainians are overwhelmingly opposed to lifting the moratorium on the sale of land. Respondents to KMIS’ survey are not actually mostly opposed, but keep in mind the poll was limited to the city of Kyiv: 37,6% say they would vote against lifting the moratorium in a referendum, and 40% would vote for. The answers show, at best, a very divided public opinion. At the national level, a poll published by the Rating agency on October 30th found that 53% of respondents did not support lifting the moratorium. But another question from KMIS brought very different results: when asked whether they believe that anyone should have the right to dispose freely of the land they own, “including selling it,” 73,2% of respondents said yes, indicating — if taken at face value — overwhelming support for the land reform. KMIS writes that “the difference in the answers indicate that public opinion on the issue isn’t crystallized, and that there is a strong sensitivity to the formulation of the question.”
Close to two-thirds of the residents (64.3%) of the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions (collectively known as “Donbas”) want to merge their
17​ UKRAINE Country Report​ December 201 ​ ​www.intellinews.com