Over 25% of Ukrainians would vote for Yanukovych in presidential elections -poll

More than a quarter of Ukrainians would vote for incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych in presidential elections if they were held next weekend, and Batkivschyna parliamentary faction leader Arseniy Yatseniuk and leader of the UDAR party Vitali Klitschko would compete for qualifying for the second round, the Sofia social research center found after conducting a poll of 5,004 respondents in all regions of Ukraine on December 6-17.

In particular, the poll showed that 25.8% of the respondents determined to cast their ballots would vote for Yanukovych, 16.1% for Yatseniuk, and 16.0% for Klitschko.

Svoboda All-Ukrainian Union leader Oleh Tiahnybok would be supported in presidential elections by 7.8% of the respondents, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko by 6.5%, and parliamentarian Anatoly Hrytsenko of the Batkivschyna faction by 2.6%.

Another 1.3% of the respondents would back Natalia Korolevska, the leader of the Ukraine-Forward! Party and social policy minister; 0.8% former Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn, and 0.5% Ukrainian Choice movement leader and former presidential chief of staff Viktor Medvedchuk.

As many as 5.2% of those polled would vote against all candidates, and 17.4% are undecided.

Asked whether they would go to polling stations, 48.4% said they certainly will or are likely to do so, 26.8% would probably do so, 6.1% would probably not, 13.5% would certainly not cast their ballots, and 5.2% are undecided.

Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for 2015.