The majority of Ukrainians (64 percent of those who would have participated in the referendum) would have voted against joining the Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan (as of February), according to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
According to the release made public on Feb. 28 following the results of the poll, if those who had not decided on their choice would not have come to a referendum on joining the Customs Union, about 66 percent of those, who have the right to vote and live in the territories controlled by Ukraine, would vote. In this case, the votes would be distributed as follows (these figures are closest to the possible results of the referendum, if it were held in February): 36 percent would vote for joining the Customs Union, 64 percent would be against.
The KIIS states that the percentage of people willing to vote for joining the Customs Union in February was slightly higher than during previous polls conducted after the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. So, from December 2014 to September 2017, the percentage of people willing to vote for joining the Customs Union did not exceed 18 percent, in February 2019 – 23 percent. At the same time, the percentage of opponents of joining the Customs Union decreased from 55 percent in September 2017 to 43 percent in February 2019.
“That is, although the percentage of opponents of joining the Customs Union significantly prevails over the percentage of supporters, however, according to the current poll, some of the population’s anti-Russian sentiment is somewhat weakened,” the release said.
KIIS held its own nationwide opinion poll on Feb. 8-20. A total of 2,042 respondents living in 110 populated localities in all Ukrainian regions, except for Crimea, were polled via a personal interview method using a four-level stochastic sample representative for the population of Ukraine aged over 18. The opinion poll was carried out in Luhansk and Donetsk regions only in the areas controlled by the Ukrainian authorities.
The statistical margin of error (with a probability of 0.95 and a design effect of 1.5) does not exceed 3.3 percent for indicators close to 50 percent, 2.8 percent for indicators close to 25 percent, 2.0 percent for indicators close to 10 percent, 1.4 percent for indicators close to 5 percent.
