Ukrainian and foreign organizations plan to hold three independent exit polls on Oct. 26 to announce their results just after 8 p.m. on Election Day, when the voting ends.
Exit polls have proven to be effective and reliable ways to counter attempts at forging elections in Ukraine.
A 2004 exit poll by Democratic Initiatives Foundation, for instance, showed considerable differences with the official result giving an election win to the pro-government candidate Viktor Yanukovych, backed by then-President Leonid Kuchma.
The suspected election fraud sparked public outrage and led to the popular uprising known as the Orange Revolution that brought opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to power in a new election on Dec. 26, 2004.
Now Democratic Initiatives joins the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and the Razumkov Center for a joint exit poll that interviews some 20,000 people all over Ukraine except for the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula and separatist-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The exit poll interviewees fill in the questionnaire themselves to ensure the anonymity.
The first results of the exit poll will be announced at the press conference that will start at 7:45 p.m. in Ukrinform news agency (Kyiv, Bohdana Khmelnytskoho 8/16.) The full results will be available at the press conference that will start at 10:45 p.m. at the same place.
Iryna Bekeshkina, head of Democratic Initiatives Foundation, said that after every exit poll her organization publishes a book with detailed results. “It will be possible to study the history of party system’s development by our books,” she said.
The Canadian Government, Rating sociological service and the public opinion company “Baltic Surveys”/ The Gallup Organization (Vilnius, Lithuania) with the support of The International Republican Institute (IRI) will hold the separate exit poll. Its results will be announced in UNIAN news agency (Kyiv, Khreschetyk, 4) at 8 p.m. immediately after the closing of polling stations.
The results of these exit poll “will show not only the distribution of parties in the next parliament, but also the preferences of various social groups of Ukrainian voters immediately after polling stations are closed,” said Igor Tyshchenko, founder of Rating Group Ukraine.
Inter TV Channel, believed to be controlled by exiled billionaire Dmytro Firtash, who is fighting U.S. criminal charges alleging corruption and who was an ally of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, will announce at 8 p.m. its own exit poll. It will be conducted by the Social Monitoring Center and Oleksandr Yaremenko of the Ukrainian Institute of Social Research. More detailed results will be announced at 10 p.m.
The authors of this exit poll plan to ask from 18,000 to 20,000 people at some 400 polling stations. Those participating in this exit poll will have to fill in the questionnaires in person.
Lyovochkin is running to parliament as No. 12 in the list of Opposition Bloc.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]
