Findings reveal that less that half of citizens would uphold independence.
As the nation celebrates the 20th anniversary of breaking free from the oppressive Soviet Union, a surprising poll shows that less than half of Ukrainians would vote for national independence, while nearly a quarter of respondents said they don’t care or found the question too difficult to answer.
However, the results are interpreted more as a protest against present-day conditions than a desire to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
What really seems to bother citizens, according to experts, is their belief that mafia, criminals, businessmen, political party leaders and government officials have the greatest impact on Ukrainian society.
“People see politicians as a cover for a criminal system,” said sociologist Yuri Zadiraka of the findings that seem to cast a dark cloud over Ukraine’s future. Made public in early August, the survey was conducted in April by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences in Ukraine.
When asked who has the greatest influence on Ukraine, 40 percent answered “mafia, criminals,” while 37 percent answered businessmen. Next on the list, at roughly 30 percent each, were government officials and political party leaders.
At the bottom of the influential list were retirees, heads of agricultural enterprises, intellectuals and peasants.
Of 1,200 respondents polled, nearly 47 percent said they would vote for independence today, compared to the 90 percent that voted to uphold independence in a historic national referendum on Dec. 7, 1991.
But even experts from the institute cautioned that their findings probably don’t mean that a majority of citizens no longer want Ukraine to remain as an independent state. Instead, they interpreted the results as the venting of frustration with massive corruption and economic hardship. Only 28 percent of those polled said they were actually against independence.
“The results may seem shocking at first glance, but if you look closely they are just a bubble,” Zadiraka said. “I see no tragedy. These poll results can be easily interpreted in another way and presented from an opposing perspective. I am sure that if the respondents who opposed independence of Ukraine were asked if they are ready to restore the Soviet Union, 99 percent would respond ‘no’.”
Olexander Stegniy, executive officer of Social and Marketing Research Center Socis, which conducted the poll for the institute, believes that the 90 percent of Ukrainians who supported independence in 1991 did so “as a guarantee of Ukraine’s happy future.
But what do we see now? People used to blame Moscow for stealing from Ukraine. Now our own politicians and businessmen do that. That’s why pessimism has reached the highest of levels.”
He added that corrupt, divided and ineffective governance is to blame for the low-spirited responses.
According to Stegniy, the older Soviet generation is slowly dying away, while the younger generation has gotten a taste of higher living standards and has greater demands.
This new generation of Ukrainians is angry, Stegniy added, because they are unable to satisfy their expectations due to rampant corruption, poor governance and tough economic realities.
Zadiraka analyzed the results differently.
The poll results showed that the highest level of pessimism came from the elderly or people in their 50s who “have not found a comfortable place for themselves in the new Ukraine,” Zadiraka said. A large share of the “46.6 percent of positive votes” in support of independence can be traced to youth “who cannot imagine Ukraine not being independent,” Zadiraka added.
What is clear from the survey is that Ukraine remains divided on an east-west axis. Support for independence is highest in Ukrainian-speaking western regions and lowest in eastern Ukraine, where Russian language use and influence is higher. The majority of votes against independence came from the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, said Stegniy.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected]
