Will the presidential election take place next year? Will the people retain the right to elect their president? There are no definite answers to these questions. Each new legislative initiative of the President’s team reaches farther than the previous one. Experts and Constitutional Court judges are already confused, unable to tell even the entry numbers of the draft bills they are handling. But if we presume that the next president will be elected in 2004 and that he will be elected through a general vote, the idea which is supported by 80.5% of Ukrainians, it is interesting to weigh the chances of possible candidates. The diagrams show the dynamics of feasibility ratings of eight possible candidates (four pro-Kuchma and four opposition candidates), tracked by the Razumkov Center’s sociological service from May 2001 to September 2003. (Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn’s and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s names were included in the questionnaires later, in February and November 2002, respectively).

Volodymyr Lytvyn, who is rated eighth in the list of tentative candidates for presidency, repeatedly denies any intentions to change the parliament speaker’s chair for the president’s. But who knows? Once he said he didn’t want to be Speaker. If Kuchma opts for Lytvyn, having failed to find another successor, Lytvyn is certain to have problems: he is still looked upon as Kuchma’s man, so he will have to move heaven and earth to prove his ability to act independently.

Sergey Tyhypko has gone a long way for his 3.1%, too long for his positions at the head of the National Bank and the Labor Ukraine party and for the powerful resources of political and mass media support. Apparently, he ought to be just the right sort of man: flexible, energetic, eloquent. But his popularity rating is low. Nevertheless, he has a chance to raise it. To achieve that, he has to occupy a larger office - the Prime Minister’s - at least seven or eight months ahead of the election race.

Viktor Medvedchuk’s rating reached its peak (9.3%) in July last year, when he was appointed Head of the Presidential Administration. Before that, he had been far from the top of the list of potential candidates, and after that his rating dropped significantly, almost by a third. Being well aware of his poor chances, Medvedchuk is making the best of his present closeness to the President to strengthen his own and his Social Democratic Party’s positions: he is placing his men in all branches and at all levels of government and is gradually withdrawing from public politics. Either a “convenient” president or a reform - that’s his strategy.

Alexander Moroz is rated fifth. Unlike the rest of the Socialist Party’s Political Council, he has given up on his personal ambitions, and so can make plans for his party’s parliamentary future. His comrades’ attempts to name him as a candidate in the future presidential election are impractical. Moroz is fated to ally with others. With whom exactly and on what terms - he hasn’t made up his mind yet.

Yulia Tymoshenko, more than any of the other candidates, has confidence of her victory, but her current rating is not high enough for such high hopes. Of course, her zeal and charisma can win over a lot of voters, but 6 or 7 per cent of supporters are not enough for a good launch pad. Her chances are not very high because too few people support her [protest] actions and too many do not (about 50% of respondents). Only Medvedchuk has such a high negative index. It’s unclear now whether Tymoshenko is going to run for president on her own (which is more likely), thus lowering Yushchenko’s chances, or to join forces with him. One victory for two, if they manage to share it beforehand, is possible; for one it is too problematic.

Viktor Yanukovych is rated third and may make it to the second round. He has managed to consolidate the whole potential of his premiership, but he has been unable to reinforce it with his personal potential. The political circles look upon him with caution, but the common people obviously like his stern temper and harsh utterances like “I’ll screw off their heads” or “I’ll tear off their mitts”. The people don’t know that in “setting things right” in the agrarian sector and the grain market, the Prime Minister sacks only those whom he is allowed to or ordered to sack. Yanukovych’s chances for the presidency hinge on whether Kuchma remembers his public promise to keep the Prime Minister in office until the election or replaces him in the next few months, as many experts predict.

Petro Symonenko has been the runner-up in all the previous elections, and his chances to qualify for the second round are pretty fair, but not more than that - judging from his current 11% - 12%. The Communist leader will certainly try to raise his rating on the wave of the Single Economic Space project, in which his interests coincide with the position of the Presidential Administration. So Bankova may well give him the green light and a strong mass media backup. It might just as well not happen, if this candidate builds his election campaign on plans for integration with Russia. And yet, objectively, a breakthrough to the second round is the best Symonenko can achieve.

Viktor Yushchenko is still a very promising candidate. His rating has been the highest for more than two years. But at the moment it’s not high enough to warrant a hundred percent success. The peak of Yushchenko’s popularity was in April 2002 (29.3%), when his bloc Our Ukraine came in first in the parliamentary elections and when he headed the most numerous faction in Parliament. Since then his rating has been on a slow but steady decline. The 20.1% and 20.5%, registered in the May and September polls respectively, must be a warning signal to Yushchenko and his team, who are too convinced of his victory. 20% is a critical limit for Yushchenko: if his rating drops below this line in a couple of months, he may find himself among the post-Soviet Communist Party leaders who never win in presidential elections, and then in the “Grigoriy Yavlinsky club” - always in parliament, but never at the steering wheel. Yushchenko ought to be alarmed by the fact that popular support for his actions has dropped substantially from 29% - 30% in October-December last year down to 18% this September. The reason is obvious: the absence of fresh ideas, serious initiatives, political victories, and very often - almost complete inactivity. So what are the voters supposed to evaluate, let alone support?

So far, none of these candidates has answered the main question: what does he want to do for the country, having become President? That’s why none of them can be sure that his “bird” is already in the hand. Besides, it is obvious that neither the pro-government nor the opposition candidates have unconditional support.