Presidential polls reveal frontrunners: Vitrenko and Kuchma

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Progressive Socialist Nataliia Vitrenko continues to show surprising strength in presidential pre-election popularity polls.

The outspoken member of Parliament, who has found support among Ukrainians for her staunch Communist views and populist declarations for raising pensions and workers' salaries, has steadily risen in nationwide polls and now leads in at least one.

A Democratic Initiatives poll released at the end of March showed Ms. Vitrenko supported by 21 percent of the electorate. She outpolled President Leonid Kuchma, who got the nod from 19 percent of the voters who responded to the question, "If only these candidates appeared on the ballot, for whom would you vote?"

The list of nine candidates included all who have declared their intention to run plus three who have not - Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, Socialist Party leader Oleksander Moroz and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksander Tkachenko - but are strong possibilities.

Mr. Symonenko came in a distant third in the Democratic Initiatives poll with 10 percent supporting his candidacy. Although at one point the Communist leader had said he would not run, it is becoming increasingly evident that unless a compromise candidate from the Socialist-Communist left is found he will throw his hat into the ring.

Mr. Moroz, who has said he will run if his Socialist Party nominates him and who most experts thought would be the single candidate from the political left, followed in fourth place with a 9 percent share.

The poll, which has a margin of error of 3 percent and was based on 1,200 interviews, showed center-right candidate Hennadii Udovenko, who is supported by the three-party coalition of the Rukh, Reform and Order and Christian Democratic parties, far down the ranks in fifth place with 5 percent support.

Other contenders not doing so well include Yevhen Marchuk (3 percent), the former prime minister and ex-member of the Social Democratic Party (United), who has found some official support from among the parties of the political far right, and Pavlo Lazarenko (2 percent), who fled to the United States earlier this year after the Verkhovna Rada removed his immunity from criminal prosecution but continues to maintain that he is a candidate.

A parallel poll prepared by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) showed results that differed somewhat from the Democratic Initiatives survey. In the KIIS poll, based on1,533 respondents, President Kuchma took the top spot, with 22 percent of those questioned supporting his candidacy, and Ms. Vitrenko finished second with 17.4 percent.

Mr. Moroz followed in the third position with 9 percent, while Mr. Symonenko could muster only 6.4 percent. Next came Mr. Udovenko with 3 percent. Mr. Tkachenko found no more than 2 percent support in either poll.

The KIIS survey, which was taken at the beginning of March, also showed that if a run-off was required between President Kuchma and Ms. Vitrenko, the voters would pick Ms. Vitrenko over the president by 30.1 to 28.5 percent.

As is common in Ukraine, a large percentage of the respondents said either that they found it difficult to make a decision or that they would vote for none of the above. In the KIIS poll 36 percent of those polled did not pick one of the names offered. In the Democratic Initiative poll 28 percent did likewise.

Most political pollsters explain Ms. Vitrenko's current popularity as a phenomenon that is based on her populist declaration for the need to raise pensions and wages and due to her support of issues important to the elderly and the poor, who turn out to vote most consistently and tend to support the political left.

They question her staying power, although her continued popularity has surprised some political experts.

Prof. Valerii Khmelko, president of the KIIS, said Ms. Vitrenko will show some decline as the campaign season begins. He explained that she has found support among many voters who earlier had intended to support Mr. Moroz - an electorate that could return to him once he begins campaigning actively.

Mr. Khmelko said that President Kuchma's ratings have risen as a result of the criminal proceedings begun against Mr. Lazarenko. "He showed the voters that he was doing something to battle corruption," said Mr. Khmelko.

Mr. Kuchma's resurgence also is based on his ability to use his office to project the image of a successful leader, according to Mr. Khmelko.

Many of the candidates, declared or not, have already begun to position themselves in the starting gate for the official May 16 start of the nominating process.

The most difficult initial hurdle they must overcome after they have officially registered is to obtain the 1 million voters' signatures required by the election law passed by the Verkhovna Rada on January 15. Those signatures must come from a minimum of 18 oblasts and the candidates have 60 days to gather them.

Ukraine's Central Election Commission will take two weeks to verify the signatures on the candidates' petitions, after which official campaigning will begin on August 2. The elections are scheduled for October 31.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Democratic Initiatives Foundation poll
If the ballot included only the following candidates, for whom would you vote?
Nataliia Vitrenko	21
Leonid Kuchma	19
Petro Symonenko	10
Oleksander Moroz	9
Hennadii Udovenko	5
Serhii Holovatyi	2
Yevhen Marchuk	3
Pavlo Lazarenko	2
Oleksander Tkachenko	2
Would vote against all of the above	9
Hard to say	19
Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll
If the following candidates were on the ballot today, for whom would you vote?
Leonid Kuchma	22.1
Nataliia Vitrenko	17.4
Oleksander Moroz	9
Petro Symonenko	6.4
Hennadii Udovenko	3
Yevhen Marchuk	2.9
Oleksander Tkachenko	1.8
Pavlo Lazarenko	0.5
Would vote against all of the above	10.5
Would not vote	7.9
Hard to say	17.5
Did not respond	0.9

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 18, 1999, No. 16, Vol. LXVII

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