Um what does regions of Ukraine mean? And why do the party affiliations not add up to 100%?

How do these compare with past views? Why are likely participation stats for the West so much higher? How come there are no stats for the East of Ukraine?

What are the bribe prices for votes these days? In the past, they were around 5 dollars. Has the price gone up? Has the tendency for people to accept bribes changed at all?

There's just not enough information to really make sense of the significance of these stats...

I'm thinking these stats might still reveal somewhat more trust in Yusch than there was for Kuchma. And somewhat less dismay over the voting systm than in the past.

It's going to be interesting how the YuschGov deals with the upcoming elections. I imagine we're still going to have western pressure for cleaner elections and if he wants to maintain positive publicity with Europe and the US, he and the old regime he's allied with will need to pick their battles and spin the results as neatly as possible.

dlw

Sincerely speaking if there is anything I do not trust at all it must be Ukrainian so called public surveys. I would not rely on their published results as quantitative predictions nor as tendency pointers. The information on a conducted survey must include the sampling description - what relevant categories (age, gender, region, profession, education, etc.) of citizens took part in it, the distribution of the results within these categories, the procedure description (exactly what questions were asked and in what order, how the surveyors contacted people – by phone, personally visiting their homes or places of work, in the streets, etc), how many people refused to answer all or particular questions. The method of processing the harvested data must be pointed out. The full information must be readily available from the organization’s site. The organization conducting surveys must be known for its previous polls reliable and confirmed in the course of later events and respectable. These requirements with exception of the last one are not hard to comply with if the organization actually takes pains to prepare and conduct a trustworthy poll. As I never see it happen with our Ukrainian polls, whatever their results are, I take it they are intended to serve purposes of generation of cheap sensations and public opinion manipulations. I feel very regretful about this embarrassing practice of ours.

Hi Dan! I guess you remember me! Please drop me an e-mail! I need your assistance in finishing my OR analysis! Thank you! Florian

The VR election opinion poll data you quote showing Yanukovych's RofU in the lead is broadly in line with other polls [e.g. as in an article at
http://www.korespondent.net/main/43804/ from 2nd November entitled "Kyiv taken by Tymoshenko already", which has RofU at 20.7%, BYut at 17.7% and NSNU (Our Ukraine) at 17.2%; and also amongst a blizzard of stats at http://oglyadach.com/news/2005/11/4/34659.htm ]. Despite tentative overtures from Yuliya, it looks as if BYuT and NSNU will be entering next spring's VR election independently.

At last, thank goodness, there appears to be a couple of straight-talking guys, NSNU deputies Volodymyr Filenko and Taras Stetskiv, making some sensible proposals in a punchy article [unlike some] in today's 'Dzerkalo Tyzhnya' at http://www.zn.kiev.ua/ie/show/571/51733/ , to help repair some of the damage caused during the September political crisis.

They express concern about both Yush's and Yuliya's decline in popularity following Yush's sacking of Yuliya and her government, and would ideally like to see a unified BYuT-NSNU coalition list for the elections. In any case they propose that both leaders publicly together announce what they call 'joint rules of the game' at the 1st anniversary celebration of the OR at the Maidan on 20th November.

According to the authors these should include the following points:
1.BYuT and NSNU travel parallel paths, but promise to form a coalition in the VR after the elections. [Paradoxically they may garner more votes apart than together, according to the above-mentioned 'Korespondent' article].
2. Pres. Yush declares that he will act as a true guarantor of honest and transparent elections, for the first time in Ukrainian history.
3. The larger faction in this coalition nominates the future PM, the smaller faction accepting and supporting this nominee.
4. A termination of mutual mud-slinging and 'an end of the war of kompromat'.
5.The election contest is to be about ideas, and not a mutually-destructive battle between personalities.

They consider any coalition between NSNU or BYuT and RofU as a betrayal of the OR.

Andriy, in his comment above, makes a valid point about the trustworthiness of Ukrainian opinion polls. [Has their track record over the last year and a half been as bad as he implies?] Apart from polls that are published, most political parties in democratic countries, and I assume in Ukraine, also conduct their own private polls. More articles like that of Filenko and Stetskiv in 'Dzerkalo Tyzhnya' putting pressure on Yush to get his act together with BYuT may be taken as evidence that Yush's people, in particular deputies, are getting seriously worried about their ratings and their imminent eviction from parliament. Maybe they are realising that the first priority when in power is to ensure that you remain in power.

Thankyou Levko, that was a great comment. I really do hope that Yusch and Timosh can both accept those rules.

dlw

Andriy, in his comment above, makes a valid point about the trustworthiness of Ukrainian opinion polls. [Has their track record over the last year and a half been as bad as he implies?]

I believe, 2004 was an exceptionally unlucky year for our polling institutions. As the presidential election time drew closer the published poll results came out very favorable for Mr. Yanukovich. And they were proved wrong ultimately, and it really looked like the polling agencies provided the results they were asked for instead of unbiased factual data. Then in the exit-polls every polling organization came out with a different prediction of results and they criticized each other for their polling methods very sharply (not explaining nor publishing their essential methods of analysis though) and still they did not manage to hit the mark or even come near it whithin the limits of statistical error they had defined themselves, especially in the third round of elections. I remember Razumkov and Co predicting 56-58% for Mr Yushchenko based on their exit-poll results.

But these are the most prominent examples, in fact political polls in Ukraine are conducted and their results are widely published and discussed all the time, and apart from a list of numbers similar to the one given in the parent post I could never find a reasonable extensive poll description of the kind I outlined in my preceding comment. Reminds me of the old disastrously unreliable and unprofessional soviet statistics.

keep us updated on what comes of the proposal by Filenko and Stetskiv...

dlw

LEvko, Andrey, and dlw: thanks so much for this great comment stream on Ukrainian statistics. I'm generally of the opinion that not-particularly-rigorous stats are better than none at all. Razumkov and SOCIS tend to top my list of best statistics, taken against a pretty mediocre field.

In any case, while I don't expect mass conversions to Yanukovych's Regions of Ukraine, the sense of betrayal and bewilderment of Ukrainian voters after the Yushchenko-Yanukovych joint statement and the government crisis before it would drive some voters away from the main parties.

And Ukrainians have never had strong party allegiances, because the majority of parties there have always been little more than collectives gathered around individual politicians.

So in general the data makes sense, and I would trust it to a limited extent.

So saying, your reservations, Andriy, are certainly justified.

I'll try to remember to link back to this discussion the next time I do a stats posting. Thanks again, guys.

Any comments on the reliability of this poll?
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/10641

I am suspicious of pro-Yanukovich polling.

dlw