The absolute majority of Ukrainians (51.8%) believe that in the post-war period no active political force can be trusted with power in Ukraine, according to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Center on March 21-27 and presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday.

At the same time, only 24.6% answered that they see such parties among the existing political forces. The rest found it difficult to answer.

Taking into account the results of surveys conducted in 2023, the share of those who do not believe that the incumbent parties can be trusted with power after the war shows a steady upward trend, while the share of those who allow the continued access of the incumbent parties to power is decreasing.

When asked from what environment a political force could emerge that could be entrusted with power in the post-war period, a relative majority of Ukrainians (45.1%) said that perhaps from among the military, but during previous surveys in 2023 this answer was given by the absolute majority respondents (51%).

In addition, many Ukrainians believe that the political force that can be entrusted with power after the war may emerge from the volunteer community (21.5%, downward trend), the humanitarian or technical intelligentsia (20%, downward trend), from civil society organizations society (18.6%, not changing significantly), from among existing parties (18.1%, downward trend). Significantly less would support the creation of a party from representatives of the business environment (6.2%). 22.9% of respondents found it difficult to answer, and compared to the 2023 surveys, their share has increased significantly.

Scientific director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Oleksiy Haran, noted that a decrease in support for the party in power does not at all mean support for the current opposition in such conditions.

“Sometimes the opposition rejoices: the president’s ratings are falling, which means a niche is opening up for us. But we see that the number of those who believe that one of the current political forces is well prepared to take power is decreasing. And this is the question “for everyone to think about, both the current government and the opposition forces as well,” Haran said.

He also noted the popularity of the idea of creating a new political force from among the military.

“Here it seems to me that people transfer pride in their armed forces to future politics. And when the military goes into politics, well, it’s not at all a fact that they will become successful politicians. And we had such examples, in particular after 2014, when a number of military men went into politics, but did not live up to these hopes,” he said.

Haran emphasized that despite the presence of appropriate electoral niches in Ukraine, there are no parties of certain orientations.

“There is no social democracy in Ukraine, there are no Ukrainian leftists. There are no greens in Ukraine, in the good sense of the word, that is, environmentalists of the party, something that is very popular in the West. And by and large, there are no liberals. We are conservatives to a certain extent We can include the EU, but also with great reserve, because it is still a personalist party,” he said.

The survey was conducted using the face-to-face method among 2020 respondents aged 18 years and over in all government-controlled territories of Ukraine where hostilities are not taking place, using a stratified multi-stage sample using random sampling at the first stages of sampling and a quota method for selecting respondents at the final stage. The structure of the sample population reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the survey was conducted as of the beginning of 2022 (by age, gender, type of settlement). The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%; additional systematic sampling deviations may be due to the consequences of Russian aggression.