Pre-election poll gives Poroshenko highest ‘anti-rating’ of all presidential candidates

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko is facing an uphill battle for re-election in the upcoming March 2019 presidential vote, according to the latest poll of Ukrainians’ electoral preferences.

Nearly 50 percent of Ukrainians won’t vote for Poroshenko under any circumstances, according to the poll, which was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, the Razumkov Center, and the Rating Group sociological organization. That gives Poroshenko the highest “anti-ranking” of any candidate.

The poll shows presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, who heads the Batkivshchyna (“Fatherland”) political party, leading in the presidential race. Nearly 20 percent of respondents who have already decided and plan to vote support her.

Although Tymoshenko’s “anti-ranking” stands at 27 percent, she is also the top candidate for president in virtually all regions of the country.

Ukrainian comedy actor Volodymyr Zelensky — who has not declared his candidacy — took second place, getting 11 percent of the vote among Ukrainians who have made up their minds and plan to vote.

Zelensky is followed by Poroshenko and Civic Position party leader Anatoly Grytsenko, with 10 and 9.9 percent of the vote, respectively.

Yuriy Boyko, who leads the Opposition Bloc party, received 8.7 percent of the vote, and Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko took 7.6 percent.

Ukrainian rock star and Okean Elzy frontman Svyatoslav Vakarchuk — long rumored to be preparing for a presidential run — received just over 5 percent of vote.

The poll also showed that 47 percent of Ukrainians say they would definitely vote in the election were it held in the immediate future. The actual vote will take place on March 31, 2019.

According to the poll, Ukrainians consider peace, stability, and order to be three major conditions that the country is currently lacking. They view economic decline, the mass migration of Ukrainians abroad, and poverty as the most significant threats to Ukraine.

Respondents also named Russia’s war against Ukraine and corruption as the most important issues for the country.

Compared to other polls, the three sociological organizations’ survey is considered particularly representative. The organizations interviewed a total of 10,000 respondents face-to-face from Oct. 19 until Nov. 2, 2018.