Poroshenko's Solidarity Party leads Ukrainian voters' preferences - poll

Kyiv, May 21 (Interfax) - The Solidarity political party led by Ukrainian presidential candidate and independent parliamentarian Petro Poroshenko has enjoyed the support of 16.8% of potential voters by mid-May.

These are the findings of a joint survey conducted for the Ukrainian Voters' Committee on May 8-13 and unveiled at Interfax by representatives from Socis, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) and Rating, a sociological group, in Kyiv on Tuesday.

"Were the parliamentary elections held in the very near future, Solidarity Party would come first with about 17% of the vote, followed by Batkivschyna (11%), UDAR (8.3%), Party of Regions (5.7%), and the Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko (4.6%)," KMIS Executive Director Natalia Kharchenko said.

Anatoliy Hrytsenko's Civil Position and Oleh Tiahnybok's Svoboda can each count on the support of 4.3% of the voters, she added.

At the same time, the current support for Solidarity is largely due to Poroshenko's popularity as a presidential candidate and not the platform of the party proper, Kharchenko said.

These ratings are preliminary and are unlikely to remain until the next Verkhovna Rada elections, given the constantly changing political situation in Ukraine recently, Kharchenko said.

According to the same poll findings, about 34% of Ukrainians are likely to support Poroshenko at the May 25 presidential election, whereas his closest rivals, Yulia Tymoshenko and Sergiy Tigipko, were rated much lower at 6.5% and 5.8%, respectively.

The survey, conducted by the personal interview method, polled 6,200 respondents aged 18 and above in all Ukrainian regions. The margin of error is 0.8%.