Poll: Voters of Yanukovych, Tymoshenko split Ukraine into east and west
Kyiv, January 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Candidate for the presidency Viktor Yanukovych has the greatest electoral support in Ukraine's eastern and southern regions, while voters from the country's western, northern and central regions and Kyiv voted for presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko, according to the Choice 2010 survey that was conducted by the Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies on election day.
Institute Chair Olha Balakireva presented the social and demographic portrait of the main presidential candidates at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.
She said that an absolute majority of those who voted for Yanukovych live in the country's eastern and southern regions, including in Crimea. These are mainly respondents who do not live in regional centers. Most of them (22%) are ethnic Russians.
Balakireva said that Tymoshenko was mainly supported in the country's west, center, north and in Kyiv. The survey indicated that her electorate mainly lives in villages (25%) and it mainly consists of Ukrainians (93%).
The supporters of presidential candidate Sergiy Tigipko live in regional centers (54%) and have a higher education (43%). Nearly half of his voters are under 39 years old.
Arseniy Yatseniuk's supporters were rather similar to those of Tigipko in terms of education and age. Among Yatseniuk's supporters were a great number of voters with higher education under 29 years old. On the other hand, these voters are similar to Tymoshenko's supporters in terms of their origin (91% of them are ethnic Ukrainians).
Yuschenko received support from the residents of Ukraine's western regions and most of them are Ukrainians (97%).
The Choice 2010 survey was held at 402 polling stations on election day in order to receive a high level of data accuracy. Voters were surveyed immediately after they left polling stations. A total of 804 interviewers questioned 17,512 voters who cast their ballots. Twenty-four percent of voters declined to participate in the survey.