Third of Ukrainians against obligatory use of state language in service sector – poll
Some 36% of Ukrainians do not support the introduction of the obligatory use of the state language in the service sector, according to the results of a nationwide poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Center for Political Sociology.
In particular, the respondents were asked whether they supported the introduction of the obligatory use of the state Ukrainian language in the service sector. So, 26% of respondents answered that they generally support, 28% rather support, 21% rather do not support, 15% do not support at all, and 10% find it difficult to answer.
At the same time, in the west of the country 81% of citizens support this norm (13% do not support), and in the east only 33% of citizens support this initiative (56% do not support).
As for the answers to this question in the context of supporters of different political forces, 88% of the supporters of the European Solidarity party support such a norm (8% do not support), and 66% of the supporters of the Batkivschyna party support this norm (23% do not support), 22% of the supporters of the Opposition Platform For Life party are in favor of this norm (73% do not support) and 62% of supporters of the Servant of the People party are in favor of this norm (34% do not support).
The respondents were also asked how acute the issue of using different languages is in Ukraine, when compared with other problems. So, 5% of respondents answered that this is one of the most acute problems in Ukraine, 27% – the language issue is not acute, except for some individual cases, 28% – the language issue is quite serious, but there are more pressing problems, 32% – the problem of using different languages is far-fetched, and 8% find it difficult to answer the question.
The poll was conducted form February 16 to February 27, 2021 among 2,003 respondents from all regions of Ukraine, with the exception of the occupied territories. The representative sample is in terms of gender, age, type of settlement and region of residence. The maximum random error does not exceed 2.2%.
