Poll: Yanukovych, Tymoshenko still top presidential ratings

12:30

Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko still lead the presidential ratings, according to the results of a study on the first stage of the election campaign - the nomination of presidential candidates - conducted by the Ukrainian Project System (UPS) agency on July 21-30, 2009.

The results of the survey were presented at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. A total of 2,511 respondents aged over 18 participated in the poll. The poll's margin of error is 2%.

The study showed that if the presidential election had been held this Sunday, 24% of the respondents would have voted for Yanukovych, 12.8% for Tymoshenko, 8.7% for Parliament Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn, and 5.7% for Leader of the Front for Change Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Some 3.5% of those polled said they would vote for Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, 2.9% for incumbent President Viktor Yuschenko, and 1.9% for Leader of the Ukrainian NGO Svoboda Oleh Tiahnybok. The rest of presidential candidates would win less than 1% of the vote.

If Yanukovych and Tymoshenko entered the second round of the presidential election, they would have 31.7% and 29.2% of the vote respectively. If Lytvyn and Tymoshenko entered the second round of the presidential election, they would have 29.8% and 24.1% of the vote respectively. If Lytvyn and Yanukovych entered the second round of the presidential election, they would have 32.2% and 30.8% of the vote respectively.

The rating of distrust in politicians is the following - 88.2% of respondents said they distrust Yuschenko, 72.1% Symonenko, 67.3% Tymoshenko, 62.9% Yanukovych, 53.8% Yatseniuk, and 52.4% Tiahnybok. Moreover, 51.8% of respondents distrust entrepreneur Serhiy Tihipko, 42.4% Regions Party MP Inna Bohoslovska, and 30.3% Lytvyn.

"According to the results of the survey, Lytvyn is the only candidate whose ratings grew by 1.5 times last month," the agency's sociologist, Oleksiy Kovtun, said.