They don’t like it, but they expect it

At a press conference on Wednesday 26 September the Director of the Kyiv Horshenin Institute for Management Issues Kost Bondarenko presented the results of a nationwide sociological study carried out as part of a yearlong research programme “The psychological basis of choice”.

He reported that 24.6% of those surveyed were basically negative in their attitude to vote-rigging, but understood this to have become the norm for political life in Ukraine. 5.8% saw it as positive if it served the interests of the State and people.

65.4% expressed an extremely negative attitude to vote-rigging.

Mr Bondarenko mentioned that his institute’s previous study had shown that two thirds of the population were convinced that there would also be vote-rigging in these coming elections.

He mentioned however that the overwhelming majority of respondents had not voted in elections for reward or under pressure. 3.6% admitted having voted for reward (mostly residents of Western Ukraine), and under pressure or intimidation – 8.1% (mainly people from Eastern Ukraine).

The study was carried out between 3 and 12 September in 129 parts of the country. There were2006 respondents over the age of 18, and the margin of error was not in excess of 2.2%