The approval ratings of President Petro Poroshenko slightly grew since spring, according to the poll by Razumkov Center of Social Studies published on Oct. 23.
Fourteen percent of respondents said they would vote for Poroshenko if the presidential elections were held in October. It’s almost 3 percent more than in the latest poll held by the Razumkov Center in April.
At the same time, only 24.8 percent said they trusted Poroshenko, while 68.2 percent said they didn’t. Only 6.7 percent said they fully support his actions, which is still more than 4.4 percent that supported him in April.
The results of the poll arrive amid the continuing opposition protest that has been taking place next to the parliament building since Oct. 17. It became one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in Kyiv since the EuroMaidan Revolution that drove President Viktor Yanukovych from power on Feb. 22, 2014.
Poroshenko’s closest competitor, according to the poll, is ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a veteran of Ukrainian politics and leader of the Batkivshchyna party that has 20 seats in parliament. Tymoshenko, who recently announced her candidacy for the 2019 presidential election, was supported by 8.4 percent of the respondents, which is 1 percent lower than in April.
Poroshenko, elected president in 2014, is yet to formally announce that he will be running for re-election in 2019.
Ex-Minister of Defense, opposition politician Anatoliy Hrytsenko ended up third in the ranking with 7.2 percent of votes.
One of the leaders of the ongoing anti-government protest, ex-Georgian president and former governor of Odesa Oblast Mikheil Saakashvili only got 1.7 percent of the votes from the poll’s respondents, a slight increase comparing to the 1.4 percent that supported him in the April poll.
Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovy, who leads Samopomich, a party of 25 seats in parliament, ended up with 4 percent of the votes.
Among the parties, the respondents of the poll would support Petro Poroshenko Bloc (13.6 percent), Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna (10 percent), Hrytsenko’s Civic Position party (8.9 percent). Opposition Bloc, a party mostly formed of Yanukovych’s ex-allies that has 43 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, would get 8.6 percent of votes.
