The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in conjunction with the Department of Sociology, National University of «Kyiv-Mohyla Academy» conducted a representative sample survey of adult Ukrainian population in the period from9 to 21 March this year. There were interviewed 2095 respondents aged 18 and older living in 110 villages and cities in all regions including Crimea and Kyiv by four selection at each stage.

The sample was developed based on a random selection of 210 sampling (postal areas) in Ukraine (in all 24 regions of Ukraine and Crimea). The process of sampling is based on random selection of streets, buildings and apartments within each postal area. The final stage was random selection of respondents in households.

Statistical error of selection with a probability of 0.95 does not exceed:

• 2,3% for figures close to 50%;

• 2,0% - for the indicators close to 25% and 75%;

• 1,5% - for the indicators close to 12% and 88%;

• 1% - for the indicators close to 5% and 95%;

• 0,5% - for the indicators close to 1% and 99%;

• 0,2% - for the indicators close to 0.2% and 99,8%.

(The theoretical value of the statistical error without taking into accounts the design effect; for the majority of indicators the impact of design used in the survey of stochastic sampling increases the error no more than 1.5 times).

The main conclusions:

If the election was held one week before March 26, about 70% of the electorate would take part in the voting. As a result such parties and blocs would be able to pass in the Parliament:

• The Party of Regions – 36.6% ± 3.1% of the votes;

• The block of Yulia Timoshenko – 19.1% ± 1,7% of the votes;

• The block “Our Ukraine” – 18,5% ± 1,7% of the votes;

• The Socialist party - 5.3% ± 1,5% of the votes;

• The Communist party - 3.7% ± 1,2% of the votes;

• The block of Vladimir Litvin - 3,0% ± 1.1% of the votes.

Questions about early elections to the Verkhovna Rada in this survey were asked as follows: "The Central Election Commission entered in the list the following parties and blocks in the bulletin for parliamentary elections (Give card 2). Please tell me if you take part in the voting, for whom would you like to vote?".

The distribution of the electoral intentions among all population aged 18 years and older according to the answers to these questions (in percentage) in Ukraine in general and in four regions[1] - Western, Central, Southern and Eastern political parties and blocks which took the first 10 places according to number of supporters as follows:

Table 1. The ratings of the 10 parties and blocks
(percentage of adult population aged 18 years and older)

How it can be seen from the data in the table, a week before the election, more than half of all voters of Ukraine (54%) tend to vote for three political forces: the Party of Regions and two of the most popular orange unions (The block of Yulia Timoshenko and block "Our Ukraine") have equal number of supporters. They share second and third places in the rating according to number of supporters.

The next three places according to number of supporters among adults taken by the Socialist Party (fourth place), the Communist Party and the Block of Litvin (sharing the fifth and sixth places).

The data shows that the Party of Regions has most supporters in the Eastern region but further to the West, the less supporters in the West region - almost 29 times less than in the East.

The Block «Our Ukraine» and the Block of Yulia Timoshenko on the contrary most supporters have in the Western region, and the further to the East, the less supporters in the Eastern region - is about 9 times less than in the Western region.

Table 2. The dynamics of ratings of eight parties and blocks 12 weeks before the elections (percentage of adult population aged 18 years).

The data of table 2 show that since the beginning of January until the third decade of March the number of voters who are going to vote for the Party of Regions, the block of Yulia Timoshenko, the block «Our Ukraine», the Socialist party, the block of Vladimir Litvin  and the block of Natalia Vitrenko despite of insignificant variation of rating eventually statistically significant has not changed.

During that time statistically significant increased the number of voters who tend to vote for the block PORA-PRP (changing from 0.7% to 1.8%, statistically significant at the level p = 0.004).

During this same time statistically significant decreased the number of voters who tend to vote for the Communist party (changing from 4.4% to 2.2% is statistically significant at the level p = 0.001).

If elections to the Verkhovna Rada were held the week before March 26, in the voting, most likely, 73% of voters would participate, and the balance of votes would be:

These data show that if elections were held now at least four political forces would pass to the Verkhovna Rada – the Party of Regions, the block «Our Ukraine», the block of Yulia Tymoshenko and the Socialist Party. Also three political forces have chances to pass to the Verkhovna Rada - the Communist party, the block of Vladimir Litvin, and the block «PORA-PRP».

Most likely six political forces passed in the case of elections to the Verkhovna Rada a week earlier. Together six parties and blocs would have received 86% of all votes. 450 seats in the Verkhovna Rada would be distributed as follows:

Distribution of answers to the question about the intention to take or not to take part in the voting in March 26 and the ratio between the distributions of responses to this question a week before the election of 2002 and the first round of 2004 and the percentage of voters who actually participated in the voting at those elections, give reasons to suggest that 69 ± 5 percent of voters will take part in the voting in March 26 (69,3% of voters took part in the voting in March 2002, and 75,5% in October 2004).