Ukrainian Pundit Sees Exit Poll Result As “Total Victory” for Opposition Leader

Ukrainian political scientist Mykhaylo Pohrebynskyy has described the results of an exit poll announced after polls closed in the early parliamentary election on 30 September as a “total victory” for opposition leader Yuliya Tymoshenko.

Speaking on private 5 Kanal TV, Pohrebynskyy said: “This election established who is most trusted by this or that part of Ukraine. At first, I think the president hoped that on the boost given by the dissolution of parliament he could receive comparable results to Yuliya Tymoshenko. In short, Tymoshenko had an absolute victory on that side of Ukraine. This was a 100 per cent total victory. I would say that she has buried Viktor Andriyovych’s [Yushchenko's] hopes for a second term as president.”

Pohrebinskyy said that Yushchenko should “prepare for his political pension”. “Tymoshenko won not just because she has received the chance to form a government. She also won because she set up this entire history and provoked Yushchenko into his own defeat.”

Pohrebynskyy was rather negative in his assessment of what this result showed about the state of Ukrainian society and its political elite, “which says it is leading the country into Europe”. “If it is leading Ukraine into Europe, it is not Europe of the 21st century, but Europe of the 1930s, when charismatic figures like Mussolini and Hitler scored charismatic victories, which were unexpected for many rational, educated people.”

The results of the National Exit-Poll showed Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko’s Party of Regions in first place with 35.2 per cent; Tymoshenko’s bloc in second place with 31.5 per cent; and Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence bloc in third place with 13.4 per cent.

Originally published by 5 Kanal TV, Kiev, in Ukrainian 1900 30 Sep 07.

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