Poll: Yanukovych has best chance of becoming president

Kyiv, February 17 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Regions Party and its leader Viktor Yanukovych are leading in the polls, according to a survey conducted by the Sofia Center for Social Studies on February 3-12, 2009 and presented at a press conference in Interfax-Ukraine agency on Tuesday.

A total of 2,018 respondents participated in the interview. The poll's margin of error does not exceed 2.2%.

According to the poll, if the elections were conducted soon, Yanukovych would receive the support from 24.2% of respondents, some 15.3% would choose Premier Yulia Tymoshenko, former parliamentary speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk would receive 11.8% of the votes, current speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn is supported by 5.2%, leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine Petro Symonenko is supported by 4.6% and current President Viktor Yuschenko just behind him, with 3.0%.

In the second round of the elections, Yanukovych will be supported by 35%, and Tymoshenko by 26%.

At parliamentary elections, some 25.8% of those polled would vote for the Regions Party, 15.6% for the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, 10.4% for the Bloc of Arseniy Yatseniuk, 5.5% for the Communist Party, and 5.4% for the Bloc of Lytvyn.

The pro-presidential People's Union Our Ukraine Party would fail to overcome the 3% threshold, receiving only 2.7% of the vote.