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Opinion
September 8, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
a “very favourable” view of any of the political names were in single digits for all the names on the list, whereas those with a “very unfavour- able” view were in the 40%-50% for almost all the candidates – more in many cases. Only 6% had a very favourable view of Tymoshenko (the highest any politician scored) while 44% had a very unfa- vourable view of her. For Poroshenko the same numbers are even worse with 2% and 47% re- spectively. All in all the poll found the government has a circa 80% disapproval rating.
All this creates an opportunity for the Kremlin to undermine the elections and possibly oust Po- roshenko for a new and friendlier leader. While Russia has seen its popularity sink since the annexation of the Crimea in 2014, and more than half of Ukrainians (51%) see Russia in an unfa- vourable light, attitudes vary shapely across the country. Russia is almost universally unpopular in the nationalistic west of Ukraine and only mildly unpopular in the Russophile east.
Bottom line is the poll also found that Ukrain- ians are a lot more concerned with corruption and unemployment than they are with the fight with Russia. To underscore the point Russia last week simplified the process of getting a Russian pass- port for Russian-speaking Ukrainians and the Ministry of Interior reports that there are 600,000 Ukrainians currently waiting for a passport. Kyiv called the move a provocation and reminded its
citizens that they need a decree signed by the president to terminate their Ukrainian citizenship. The Russians have said they will not permit dual- citizenship.
The passport issue is an emotive and dangerous one. Russia used passports to prepare the an- nexation of South Ossetia by handing them out freely to anyone who asked, despite the fact that the region belonged to Georgia at the time. In the Crimea too, it has been reported that about half the population hold both Russian and Ukrainian passports. The Russian constitution demands that the administration “protect” its citizens wherever they are and as a result passports are a very con- venient method of low watt invasion of a territory.
None of this will alleviate Poroshenko’s very real challenge, as regardless of the Kremlin’s she- nanigans he has to do something about his poll numbers before the elections. He will struggle to remain in office in the upcoming elections without either delivering some real results and/or mak- ing heavy use of “administrative resources” in
the upcoming elections. And the backsliding on recent IMF reform demands, like postponing land reform and dragging his heels on setting up an independent anti-corruption court, suggest that Poroshenko is already in campaign mode and intends to rely more on administrative resources than results.