| JRL HOME | SUPPORT | SUBSCRIBE | RESEARCH & ANALYTICAL SUPPLEMENT | |
Old Saint Basil's Cathedral in MoscowJohnson's Russia List title and scenes of Saint Petersburg
Excerpts from the JRL E-Mail Community :: Founded and Edited by David Johnson
#10 - JRL 2007-78 - JRL Home
Over Half Of Ukrainians Against Early Parliament Elections - Poll

KYIV. April 2 (Interfax) - Over half of Ukrainians think that the Verkhovna Rada should not be dissolved and that early elections are unnecessary, according to the results of an FOM-Ukraine opinion poll conducted on March 16-26.

According to the poll, 56.9% of Ukrainians do not support early parliament elections; 29.2% do support them; and 14% were undecided, FOM-Ukraine General Director Alexander Bukhalov told a Monday press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine office.

"The number of Ukrainians who regard early elections as senseless is twice as high as those who believe them necessary," he said.

Over 46% of respondents said that early elections would play into the hands of Yulia Tymoshenko; 10.1% named Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych as the beneficiary of any such move, 6% President Viktor Yushchenko, and 0.7% Verkhovna Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz.

If elections were held next Sunday, 24.5% would vote for the Party of Regions (37.5% last August), 18.9% for the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (17.3%), 8.2% for Our Ukraine (9%), and 4.9% for the Communist Party (3.6%). The Socialist Party would win 2.2% of votes (3.6% last August).

This would give the Party of Regions 195 seats, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc 151, and Our Ukraine and the Communist Party 65 seats each.

"The Party of Regions and the Communists would gain 234 seats and form the parliament majority. Thus, the composition of parliament would not change," Bukhalov said. In the opinion of 51.6% of the respondents, a union of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Our Ukraine will not improve the situation in the country, with 28.4% saying it would improve things..

The company polled 2,000 respondents in 160 cities, towns and villages as part of its survey, which has a margin of error of 2.2%.