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Electoral preferences of voters of Ukraine a months before the elections

Kyiv International Institute of Sociology conducted its own poll during the period of September 21 – October 3, 2012.

2043 respondents were interviewed; the survey covered all regions of Ukraine (including the city of Kyiv) and Crimea; sample was random and representative for the population of Ukraine aged 18 years and older.

Statistical sampling error (with a probability of 0.95 and a design-effect 1.5) does not exceed:
3.3% for index close to 50%
2.8% — index close to 25%
2.0% — index close to 10%
1.4% — index close to 5%.

 

According to a survey results gathered in late September, Party of Regions got the biggest number of supporters: 20.1% of voters of Ukraine.

The second largest number of supporters shared two parties: Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna" — with its 12.3% of all supporters of Ukraine and party "UDAR (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform)" headed by Vitaliy Klychko with its 11.5% of supporters (the difference between these values is statistically insignificant).

Communist Party of Ukraine had 7.8% of votes at the same time; and Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda" — 4.7%; the party "Ukraine, go ahead!" headed by Natalie Korolevska got 1.4% and the party "Our Ukraine" — about 1% of supporters among all voters of Ukraine.

Each of the other 15 parties participating in elections according to party members lists, had less than 1% of supporters in late September.

According to the regional distribution1:

  • Party of Regions is supported by 35% of voters in the Eastern region, 30% — in the South, 12% and 5% in the Central and Western areas respectively.
  • Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna" got 25% of voters’ support in the West, 16% — in the Central region, 5% and 3% in the South and in the East respectively.
  • Party "UDAR" headed by Vitaliy Klychko gathered 18% of voters’ support in the West, 13% in the Central area, 10% and 6% in the Southern and Eastern regions respectively.
  • Communist Party of Ukraine got 14% of voters’ support in the East, 10% in the South, 5% and 3% in the Central area and in the Western region respectively.
  • Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda" got 15% of voters’ support in the West, 3% in the Central region, 1% and 1% in the Southern and Eastern macroregions respectively.

According to the results of the same survey, held in late September, 12.4% of the voters decided not to participate in the elections and nearly 27.2% did not decide whether to participate, and if they do, they did not decide whom they would vote for.

Thus, if the elections were held a month before the actual ones, that is at the same time that the present survey was held, almost 40% of voters were not ready to make any choice to support any of the candidates listed according to the data above.

The total number of votes made by 60.4% of voters who decided which party to vote for and who were going to participate, would be distributed among the parties — according to their members lists — approximately as follows:

Party of Regions would have 33.3% of votes,
Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna" — 20.5%
Party "UDAR" headed by Vitaliy Klychko — 19.1%
Communist Party of Ukraine — 12.9%
Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda" — 7.8%
Party "Ukraine, go ahead!" headed by Natalie Korolevska — 2.3%
Party "Our Ukraine" — 1.5%.

Each of the other 15 parties participating in elections according to their party members lists, gathered less than 1% of all the votes.

As a result, the Parliament would include five parties: the Party of Regions, Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna", party "UDAR" headed by Vitaliy Klychko, Communist Party of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda".

It makes up four months after our previous similar survey has been conducted with a similar technique in June this year. During this period of time statistically significant increase can be observed in the number of people willing to participate in the elections from 55.2% to 60.4%; and in the number of the Party of Regions supporters (from 16.0% to 20.1%); and in the number of supporters of the party "UDAR" headed by Vitaliy Klychko (from 8.0% to 11.5%), the Communist Party of Ukraine (from 5.8% to 7.8%), and Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Svoboda" (from 3.1% to 4.7%). At the same time, statistically significant decrease can be found in the number of supporters of the Ukrainian Nationwide Coalescing "Batkivschyna" (from 14.5% to 12.1%) and the Party "Ukraine, go ahead!" headed by Natalie Korolevska (from 3.3% to 1.4%).

However, Party of Regions and Communist Party of Ukraine would receive total of 46.3% of votes according to their party members lists and the three oppositional parties 47.4% (the difference between these values is statistically insignificant).

 

Application

The distribution of answers (in %) to the question below among voters in Ukraine in general and in four macroregions would be as follows: "If the elections to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine were held today and Central Election Commission had made the following parties listed in the election bulletin in the order determined by lot, would you participate in voting? And if yes, which party would you vote for?"

  Ukraine in general Macroregions
West South Central East
Political Party Ukrainian Platform 'Sobor' 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.4
Socialistic Party of Ukraine 0.6 0.2 1.5 0.2 0.0
Communist Party of Ukraine 7.8 2.8 4.8 10.4 14.2
Party 'Rus Block' 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.0
Party 'Ukraine, go ahead!' headed by Natalie Korolevska 1.4 0.9 1.5 1.7 1.3
Political Party UNC 'Gromada' 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0
Liberal Party of Ukraine 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0
Political Party UNC 'Svoboda' 4.7 14.9 2.6 1.3 0.9
Ukrainian Party 'Green Planet' 0.1 0.0 0.2 0.2 0.0
Party of Retirees of Ukraine 0.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.4
Political Party 'Our Ukraine' 0.9 3.0 0.7 0.2 0.0
Political Party 'Greens' 0.1 0.6 0.0 0.0 0.0
Political Party 'UDAR' headed by Vitaliy Klychko 11.5 17.5 13.0 9.6 5.6
Political Party 'Ukraine of the Future' 0.2 0.4 0.3 0.0 0.0
Political Party UNC 'Batkivschyna' 12.3 24.7 16.1 5.2 2.9
Party of regions 20.1 5.0 12.2 30.3 35.1
Political Party 'Nation Labor Union of Ukraine' 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.0
Radical Party headed by Oleg Liashko 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.0 0.0
I would not participate 12.4 6.1 12.0 16.2 15.1
Difficult to say/I don’t know 27.2 22.7 35.1 24.5 24.0
TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100

 

Comments by V.Paniotto and V.Hmelko

Why do different September studies results in ratings of "Batkivschyna" and "UDAR" differ so much?

Let us have a look at the surveys conducted by KIIS in September and organized by date. Since questions regarding ratings provided by different clients are different, the number of undecided and those who would not come, varies in different studies. To have a better idea of what is meant, let us take a look at the percentage in relation to those who intend to participate in the elections and who have already decided on their choice.

Table 1. Parties’ ratings in relation to those who intend to participate in the elections and who have already decided on their choice.

  KIIS AlphaVu1 KIIS AlphaVu2 Democratic Initiatives OMNIBUS
Sep 11–18 Sep 12–23 21.09-01.10 21.09-03.10
Party of Regions 32.5 33.3 30.5 33.3
Batkivschyna 19.0 17.7 19.6 20.4
UDAR 20.6 23.0 21.4 19.1
Communist Party of Ukraine 13.1 11.7 13.3 13.0
Svoboda 5.2 4.9 6.6 7.8
Ukraine, go ahead! 4.0 3.8 2.6 2.3
Our Ukraine 2.2 1.2 1.8 1.5
Other 3.4 4.3 4.2 2.3
TOTAL 100 100 100 100

 

Chart 1. Correlation between rankings of “Batkivschyna” and “UDAR”

As we can see, "UDAR" took the second place in early September (study AlphaVu1 from 5th to 13th of September), later on the difference increased and reached about 5% (study AlphaVu2, September 12-23rd), and the last two research rankings show the difference was insignificant at the end of September. We believe that these data were highly influenced by the victory of Vitaliy Klychko through the KO in the battle, which took place on September 8th and became a media event. The first study was partly conducted after the battle, the second one was fully after the battle, and the impact of emotional reactions to the battle victory decreased by the end of September.

In order to test this hypothesis OMNIBUS asked the question about the fight and got the following results:

Table 2. Tell us, please, do you know anything, or have you heard anything or have you read anything about the fight between Vitaliy Klychko and Manuel Charr, which was held on September 8th? Have you watched this battle?

I know about this battle and watched it 37.4
I know about this battle but I did not watch it 29.5
I do not know about this battle 32.2
Difficult to say/Don’t know 0.9
TOTAL 100

As we can see, the battle was watched by 37% of the population and only a third part of the one knew nothing about this fight.

Table 3. Correlation between population’s attitude towards V. Klychko as an athlete and the support of  Political party "UDAR"

  Political Party “UDAR”' UNC “Batkivschyna” Difference
I know about this battle and watched it 28,6 20,5 8,1
I know about this battle but I did not watch it 17,8 18,7 -0,8
I do not know about this battle 8,5 22,1 -13,6

Table 3 shows that interest toward sports activities of V. Klychko has a significant impact on the support of "UDAR": 29% of those who watched the fight plan to vote for "UDAR", and only 9% of those who knew nothing about this fight vote same (support of "Batkivschyna" by those who watched the fight and those who did not watch, has statistically significant difference).

Thus, the dominance ranking of party "UDAR" over ranking of party "Batkivschyna" in the first half of September can be explained by the emotional reaction of voters to the victory of V. Klychko in the fight. Rankings of "Batkivschyna" and "UDAR" have no statistically significant differences now.

 


1 West: Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Transcarpathian area, Khmelnytsky, Chernivtsi, Central macroregion: Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kirovohrad, Cherkasy, Kyiv oblast, Kyiv; Southern macroregion: Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Odessa, Crimea (including Sevastopol); Eastern macroregion: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv.

10.10.2012
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