New polls indicate Kuchma still leads the pack (10/17/99)

New polls indicate Kuchma still leads the pack

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - If Ukrainians were to go to the polls today to choose their next president, their choice would be the incumbent, President Leonid Kuchma, according to the results of three independent sociological surveys.

Although the current president is favored to lead in the first round of voting, none of the polls show that he is capable of obtaining the mandatory 50 percent-plus support required by law. Therefore a second-round run-off is likely to be required on November 14, and Mr. Kuchma is expected to prevail.

The findings were presented on October 14 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the Ukrainian Sociological Service and the Ukrainian Institute of Social Research in conjunction with the Social Monitoring Center. The polls are among the last that can be revealed publicly because of an election law that bans disseminating such information in the last two weeks before the election - a measure that troubled several of the sociologists present.

While stating that two weeks before the elections was still too early to make a final scientific prediction, Iryna Bekeshkina, expert for the Democratic Initiative Fund that coordinated the series of political surveys, said, "Even if today is still early, tomorrow will be too late, because we will not be able to publicize the ratings."

All three surveys put Mr. Kuchma well ahead of the pack in the first round. The polls, whose margins of error vary from 2 percent to 3 percent, show the incumbent with anywhere from 29 percent to 31 percent electoral support.

Mr. Kuchma is followed by Progressive Socialist candidate Natalia Vitrenko with 14-15 percent support. Third comes Communist Party candidate Petro Symonenko with 11-13 percent.

The Ukrainian Sociological Service poll did not consider the responses of who stated either that they still were not sure whether they would vote, still had not made a choice, or would not vote for anybody. Its results gave the incumbent president a 29 percent rating, followed by Ms. Vitrenko at 25 percent and Mr. Symonenko with 17 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percent.

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll shows that in second-round voting with Ms. Vitrenko as the current president's opponent, Mr. Kuchma's projected support would rise to 39.1 percent, while Ms. Vitrenko would take 30.3 percent of the vote.

Against Mr. Symonenko, the president would do even better, getting 43.4 percent of the vote to the Communist leader's 24.1 percent.

In the Ukrainian Institute of Social Research/Social Monitoring Center poll, Mr. Kuchma received even more support: 43 percent against Ms. Vitrenko's 31 percent, and 47 percent against Mr. Symonenko's 25 percent.

Oleksander Moroz, who many believed would get the nod as the single candidate from the Kaniv Four, would do only slightly better than Mr. Symonenko against the president. Merely 26 percent of the poll's respondents supported him as their candidate in the second round, against 45 percent for Mr. Kuchma.

None of the Kaniv Four candidates was shown to have strong support among the voting populace, although together they could get 16 percent of the vote. The Ukrainian Sociological Service poll indicated that Mr. Moroz has the most support of the Kaniv Four with 9 percent of the respondents favoring him in the first round, while the other two polls have him at between 5 and 7 percent.

Olha Balakirieva, director of the Social Monitoring Center, said that the Kaniv Four will have a major problem, regardless of whom the four candidates choose to represent them, because their individual voter support does not transfer to the other candidates in the political coalition.

"If the Kaniv Four decides to support a single candidate that does not mean that all the support of the four candidates will go the single person. It will break up and spread to other candidates [outside the coalition]," explained Ms. Balakirieva.

Ms. Balakirieva also said that while Mr. Kuchma and Mr. Symonenko have the most dedicated electorates, Messrs. Marchuk and Tkachenko have the most fickle supporters.

All three polls show that at least 70 percent of Ukraine's eligible voters will turn out to vote, and that, again, youths will least participate in the elections.

The sociologists all agreed that if one or more of the top five candidates drop out of the race before October 31 the results could be affected substantially.

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