The current political crisis in Ukraine, having shifted from a moral dimension to a structural one, has stirred the generally apolitical population of the country.

The man in the street has failed to notice the change but the process of shaping political preferences and allegiances has finally moved. The evidence of this activity is to be found everywhere. First of all, it has affected the political parties’ ratings. While in February 36% of respondents said they would not vote for any of the parties, today only 25.7% would place no trust in any political alliance whatsoever. The number of respondents who found this question difficult to answer was reduced from 23% in February to 20% in May. Practically all parties have now recruited new supporters. The most successful, in percentage terms, were the communists whose rating grew from 14% in February to the current 17.5%. The observation that “the longer the power remains static, the more people will feel they were better off in the Soviet Union” is proving to be true.

In proportional terms, though, the biggest gain goes to Udovenko’s Rukh - its ratings increased from 2% to 4.6%. And yet, there is another record breaker: Olexandr Volkov’s Democratic Union outran the Rukh having raised its rating from 0.4% to 1.3%.

This was the first opinion poll to include the Democratic Party of Ukraine onto the list of major political parties. And immediately, Yavorivsky and Antonieva’s creation won the support of 4.3% of respondents. The reason is obvious: the party’s name. Our people long for democracy. DPU hope to copy the example of the Green Party at the last election whose support was based on name only.

At the same time, not all indicators have gone up, some tend to decrease, including the level of the population’s trust of law enforcement. The pre-scandal July poll showed that the militia enjoyed the full trust of 12% of the Ukrainian public. In May 2001, however, the trust rate is as low as 6.9%. The rate of the citizens’ confidence in the Prosecutor General’s Office has decreased almost two-fold. Whereas in July 2000 it was equal to 12%, now it has dropped to 6.7%. No wonder. According to public opinion, the Ukrainian judicial system is not very trustworthy: only 7.4% of the population have confidence in the courts. The Ukrainian mass media are trusted by only 10% of the respondents. The top trust rate of 30% belongs to the church, the bottom (5.5%) - to trade unions.

The overall picture of support given to various power bodies and individual politicians looks as follows:

 

		Fully support	Support some of their activities	Do not support	Noncommittal
1.	President of Ukraine	10,8	40,5	44,2	4,5
2.	Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine	4,4	37,0	52,1	6,5
3.	Government of Ukraine	12,0	45,6	35,3	7,1
4.	Local governments	10,6	43,4	37,9	8,1
5.	National Salvation Forum	5,2	18,8	29,6	46,4
6.	Yevhen Marchuk	3,8	19,4	48,7	28,1
7.	Viktor Medvedchuk	2,9	17,6	49,8	29,7
8.	Ivan Pliushch	5,8	24,9	46,6	22,7
9.	Olexandr Moroz	4,8	22,6	53,5	19,1
10.	Yuliya Tymoshenko	4,9	17,8	59,5	17,6
11.	Viktor Yushchenko	26,4	34,1	28,4	11,1

Ex-Prime Minister’s reserve is substantial

but not limitless

 

Viktor Yushchenko deserves separate comment. The poll conducted by the Razumkov Centre has reflected the starting point in Mr Yushchenko’s new career after he, according to his own, widely quoted statement, abandoned the Prime Minister’s position but not politics. It is obvious that nowadays half of the country’s population offer their unwavering support to Viktor Andriyovych. Such a broad backing testifies that it is not only the population of a bunch of Western oblasts that are loyal to the ex-Prime Minister. His record while heading the government is approved by 26.4% of respondents, some of his initiatives having gained the favourable opinion of 34.1%.

59% of respondents expressed their negative attitude to a potential (given the time of the poll) resignation of Yushchenko’s government, while 19% were ready to support it. The rest found it hard to come to a decision.

Half of the population expressed their anxiety that the Prime Minister’s dismissal could be detrimental to the economic situation of the country. At the same time, 8.6% of respondents expected it to improve, while another 24% anticipated no change at all.

The distribution of responses to the following question is significant. The question was “In the next parliamentary election, will you cast your ballot for the People’s Deputies and political parties that are going to vote for the resignation of Viktor Yushchenko’s government?” Those who replied “I will definitely vote for them” made up 7.8%, whereas those who refused to vote for them accounted for 34% of respondents. Of course, it is not the majority, but still the figure is impressive. Interestingly, the respondents seem to have a very clear-cut idea as to who will benefit from the Prime Minister’s dismissal: 31.3% are sure these are oligarchic clans, 20.3% - the Communist Party and its proponents, 12.8% - the President of Ukraine, 12.3% - pro-Presidential parties. Meanwhile, only 5% of respondents think that the non-communist opposition (National Salvation Forum) will be interested in the Prime Minister’s resignation. However, our people cannot visualise Viktor Andriyovych fighting on the barricades, neither can Mr Yushchenko himself.

It is worth mentioning that 41% of the population acknowledged that their loyalty to a certain party depends little on whether the party members will vote for or against Mr Yushchenko’s resignation. Perhaps, part of the 9.3% of respondents who believe that Ukrainian people at large will benefit from the Prime Minister’s dismissal are among them. Or perhaps, these 41% also comprise some of the 30% of respondents ambivalent as to who will ultimately gain rather than lose, after the Prime Minister resigns. Today it is really hard to say who will benefit from the change of the government. It requires time to understand whether this has been the least or the biggest of evils to choose from.

And finally, the last question about Yushchenko, asked during the Razumkov Centre poll, concerned his chances to be elected President. According to the data obtained, should the presidential election take place now, Viktor Yushchenko would have got 27.5% of votes. It is twice as many as the second-best result shown by Petro Symonenko - 12.9%.

As a matter of fact, the electorate is more actively identifying their preferences not only with regard to political parties, but to individual politicians as well. While in February 25.3% of respondents were not sure whom their choice would lie with, now this number fell to 18.2%. Three months ago as many as 22% of the poll participants were not going to vote for anyone, now there are only 16.4% of potential abstainees. According to the poll results, all politicians’ ratings have increased. For instance, the rate of Viktor Yushchenko’s popularity grew by 4%, and that of Leonid Kuchma’s - from 6.1% to 7.7%. However in proportional terms, Natalia Vitrenko’s popularity rate has skyrocketed from 2.6% to 5.2%. The reason is that lately the Progressive Socialists’ leader has been a regular on national TV. For the people, charisma means much more than the essence of one’s political program. Unfortunately, very few leaders realise that. Ms Vitrenko is one of those who do, as well as a number of others skilfully availing themselves of this opportunity for image-making.

Viktor Yuschenko’s starting position is a strong one, it would be hard to weaken it yet he is already trying to.

 

Who is “the best” in the Cabinet of Ministers?

 

Frankly, being a Prime Minister in Ukraine is a tough and unrewarding job. In the overwhelming majority of cases, heads of governments were turned into whipping boys, and that is not new. What is new this time is the popular reaction to the Prime Minister’s activity. With all previous heads of government it was unmistakably negative. There were a number of reasons for that, varying from the people’s acute feeling of the lack of any positive changes (since the latter, actually, never took place) to the population’s inability to estimate the steps taken by those Prime Ministers from the viewpoint of their macroeconomic feasibility or of promoting the state interests. Besides, by now the people might have forgotten some of the “deeds”, both positively and negatively affecting the country’s economy, accomplished by a host of Ukrainian Prime Ministers. Pavlo Lazarenko seems to be an exception: only 0.8% of the population believe that he coped with his prime ministerial duties better than the rest of his colleagues. At the same time, 1.4% of respondents consider Yukhym Zviahilsky to be the most competent of all previous Prime Ministers. Vitold Fokin and Vitaliy Masol were praised by about 2% of respondents each, while Leonid Kuchma and Yevhen Marchuk - by less than 2.5%. Among the pre-Yushchenko cohort of Prime Ministers, Valeriy Pustovoitenko proved to enjoy the greatest popularity - 4.2% of respondents pointed to him as the best Head of the Cabinet. The last Prime Minister, though, is viewed as the most efficient Ukrainian Prime Minister ever by 44% of the poll participants. No doubt, it is partly due to the fact that the people still remember Mr Yushchenko’s achievements while in office. But it is only partly so because 42% of respondents are positive that they cannot appreciate the activities of any of the eight Prime Ministers. So people know what they are speaking about.

Whom do Ukrainians rely on for the improvement of the economic situation in the country?

Responses to this question seem indicative, if not surprising. Analysing such responses you may become doubtful of the population’s inherent wisdom. Yet, doubtful or not, you should respect the popular opinion, which indicates that Natalia Vitrenko is the winner of the people’s hopes: 9.1% of respondents would like to see her appointed Prime Minister. Serhiy Tyhipko is the second with about 7%. And, quite unexpectedly for an all-Ukrainian poll, the Kiyv mayor Olexandr Omelchenko came third. These are the three top choices made by our people...

In public opinion, among the least welcome nominees for the post are Mykola Azarov (1.1%), Oleh Dubyna (1.9%), Anatoliy Kinakh (2.1%), Viktor Medvedchuk (2.2%) and Yevhen Marchuk (2.6%). I hope our readers will understand that the respondents were asked to choose from the list of names most frequently cited by the press. While making their choice, 27% of respondents failed to estimate the candidates’ chances, and 40% expressed their strong feeling that none of the suggested candidates would be capable of changing the economic situation in Ukraine for the better. We are especially optimistic about this last group of respondents: 40% of sober-minded people is an invaluable asset to our country.

 

Neither a hero nor a traitor

 

Strange as it might seem, the seven months that have passed since the publication of Mykola Melnychenko’s first tapes has not been long enough for the Ukrainian population to assume a clear attitude to the major’s behaviour. Thus, 35% of respondents are convinced that Mykola Melnychenko did what he did for his own sake, pursuing his own interests. Unfortunately, they did not specify those interests, so it is not clear what exactly they mean: the major’s lust for money, his mental health, his personal attitude to the President, his system of values or understanding of fair play he wanted to see established in the country? As you see, “his own interests” or “his own sake” seem to be a very vague subject that, like the human mind in medicine, defies examination. As does everything related to the Melnychenko case. Though some people would certainly disagree. For example, 16% of respondents argue that the major is “a man who honestly performed his duty to his country”.

About 9% of respondents firmly believe that Melnychenko is a traitor, 8.8% think he sold out his motherland for money, and only 1.9% esteem him as a hero. The opinion of 29% of respondents is rather ambiguous. Perhaps they cannot decide between the political expediency of the major’s act and his violating the professional code of ethics. Or perhaps they never even tried to decide, as it is quite possible that they have no idea of either what he has done or what the content of his tapes might be about. Which is not surprising in our country.

Public opinion in Ukraine is still undecided on what is meant by the US granting of political asylum to Major Melnychenko. As recently as three weeks ago it seemed that people, unfamiliar with the subtleties as they are, understood the situation. Actually, no, they did not.

It testifies that Melnychenko worked for the US secret service	13,1
It means that the USA considers all of Melnychenko’s tapes to be authentic	18,1
It is an attempt by the USA to interfere in Ukraine’s internal affairs	24,2
It is an attempt by the USA to facilitate democratic reforms in Ukraine	8,3
It is an attempt to initiate the President of Ukraine’s removal from office	11,1
It means that the USA regards Ukraine as a non-democratic authoritarian state	16,6
In this way the USA tries to get access to Ukraine’s state secrets	12,1
In this way the USA exerts pressure upon certain Ukrainian politicians and statesmen	15,6
Other	2,5
Hard to say	26,4

To sum up, electorates are an enigma. The people themselves face the challenge of solving it in their search for an answer to the question: why are we living like this?