Poll: Less than half of Ukrainians understand rules ahead of high-stakes election

An elderly woman reads a information leaflet of a candidate in the Black Sea Ukrainian city of Odessa on October 31, 2010.
© AFP

With just six weeks before Ukrainians vote in a parliamentary election that could change the course of their nation’s future, a think tank revealed that less than half of citizens have a clear grasp of new election rules.

Only 48 percent of Ukrainians said they know that the Oct. 28 contest involves election of half of the 450-seat parliament through contests in single-mandate districts. Findings of the poll were made public on Sept. 11.

“This is disturbing, because the [single-mandate part of the vote] will be the decisive part of the fall election,” said Iryna Bekeshkina, director of the Kyiv-based Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

The poll, conducted in mid-August by Bekeshkina’s non-governmental organization and the Razumkov Center, showed that other 29 and 23 percent of respondents know little or nothing about single-mandate contests.

The October vote will take place under the mixed system, adopted last November, reverting to a system the nation last used in the 2002 parliamentary election. The other half of parliament is elected through closed party lists.

Pre-election polls currently show that Ukraine’s political opposition has a chance to win a majority, breaking the monopoly grip on power by President Viktor Yanukovych, who stands accused of rolling back on democracy and imprisoning political rivals.

Yanukovych denies such accusations, but opposition parties claim the presidential camp is plotting to steal the election. Concerned about the jailing of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and democracy in Ukraine, the West is sending large observer missions to Ukraine. It is much easier to monitor national party list contests than keeping an eye on 225 district contests throughout the nation with some 3,000 candidates.

“The fact that so many people do not know about the single mandate part of the vote means that the choice of some of them will be random” Bekeshkina said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at onyshkiv@kyivpost.com.