Poll: Majority of Ukrainians skeptical about fairness of second round of elections
Feb 3, 2010 at 17:27 | Interfax-UkraineOnly 6.8% of the respondents are absolutely sure that the second round will pass fairly and its results will not be rigged, another 20.5% are rather confident of this, and 19.2% are undecided.
Among Prime Minister and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko's supporters, 57.9% are unsure about the fair organization of the second round, and among Party of Regions of Ukraine leader Viktor Yanukovych's supporters there are 41.5% of such people.
As many as 62.5% of those polled believe that the official results of the first round of the elections announced by the Central Elections Commission correctly reflect the people's preferences, while 16.4% hold the opposite view, and 21.1% could not determine their position.
At the same time, 23.1% of Tymoshenko's supporters called into question the official results of the first round, while only 4.9% of Yanukovych's supporters did the same.
Asked about violations of the election laws during the first round of the elections, 13.3% of those polled said there were such violations that significantly distorted the voting results. At the same time, 41.9% are of the view that, while there were minor abuses, they did not significantly change the real voting results; 24.1% believe that there were virtually no violations during the first round, and 20.7% were undecided.
The share of those insisting that the result of the first round of the elections was significantly distorted is higher among Tymoshenko's supporters (21.1%) than among Yanukovych's (6.2%).
As many as 11.6% of the respondents said they were prepared to join mass protests against vote rigging in the presidential elections, which is 3% less than was recorded in December 2009. In particular, 10.8% of Yanukovych's and 16.9% of Tymoshenko's supporters are ready for active protests.