About 34 percent of Ukrainians are ready to back the candidacy of billionaire Petro Poroshenko at the upcoming presidential election on May 25, whereas the ratings of his closest rivals, Yulia Tymoshenko and Sergiy Tigipko, are much lower, at 6.5 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively, according to the findings of a survey conducted on May 8-13 and presented by sociologists from SOCIS, Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and Rating at the Interfax news agency's office in Kyiv on May 20.
About 23% of voters do not know who to vote for; nearly 12 percent said they will not go to the polls, according to the findings.
The top five is rounded out by Oleh Liashko and Anatoliy Hrytsenko, who are favored by 4.1% and 4% voters, respectively.
Following the top five are Mykhailo Dobkin (3.5 percent), Petro Symonenko
(2.2 percent), Olha Bohomolets (1.9 percent), Oleh Tiahnybok (1.3 percent) and Dmytro Yarosh
(0.6 percent), the poll found.
Fifty-three point two percent of those who intend to go to the polls
and made up their mind, favor Poroshenko, this figure was 48.4 percent in an
April survey, according to the poll findings. He is followed by
Tymoshenko who saw her ratings among those who made up their mind fall
from 14 percent in April to 10.1 percent.
The three other candidates in the top five have improved their
ratings in the past month: Tigipko from 7.4 percent to 8.8 percent, Liashko from 4.6 percent
to 6.3 percent and Hrytsenko from 5 percent to 6.2 percent.
The rest in the top ten saw their ratings drop since April: in
particular, Dobkin from 6 percent down to 4.9 percent, and Symonenko from 5.6 percent down to
3.1 percent.
The survey, conducted by the personal interview method, polled 6,200
respondents aged 18 and above in all Ukrainian regions (except Crimea).
The margin of error was 0.8 percent.
