According to a survey carried out by the Democratic Initiatives Fund, incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko has practically no chance of winning the upcoming presidential elections.

The results of the study were presented at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday. According to the poll, Yushchenko would have won less than 2.9% of the vote if the presidential elections were held in late December 2008 or early January 2009.

"[President] Viktor Yushchenko dropped to sixth position in the presidential ratings, not even the third position held in the first half of 2008," the department head at the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Oleksandr Vyshniak, said at a press conference on Monday.

Fund Chairwoman Iryna Bekeshkina said that "Yuschenko will unlikely run for the president given such a sharp fall in his ratings."According to the survey, 30.3% of respondents would vote for Regions Party leader Viktor Yanukovych as Ukraine's president, and only 16.7% for incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.