The rating of Zelensky’s ruling party has fallen by 47%, according to the latest opinion polls conducted by active Group in Ukraine. Distrust of Zelensky’s team was expressed in all regions of Ukraine, in particular, the largest percentage of distrust was shown by the regions of the South and West.
This is evidenced by the results of a poll conducted by the research company “Аctive Group”.
Sociologists conducted corresponding measurements of electoral sympathies for the elections in May 2021. The poll showed that four political forces are included in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine — the Servant of the people (26%), the European solidarity (19.8%), the Opposition platform — for life (14%) and the Batkivshchyna (14% ).
Among the parties that participated in the parliamentary elections in 2019, the chances of getting into Parliament has Strength and honor (4.4%), Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman (4.4%) and Lyashko’s Radical Party (3.7%).
Such well-known political forces as Golos, Udar, Svoboda, and Za maybutne have support in the range of 1–3%. The rating (1.5%) of the so-called Razumkov’s Party, which does not exist and may only appear in the future, is not surprising, since Dmytro Razumkov’s activities as the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada are regularly covered by numerous media outlets.
But the new pro-Ukrainian political forces are of great interest to Ukrainians.
The National Platform party, established only in 2020, is already ready to be voted for by 1.1% of Ukrainian voters. Why a political force, which was headed by a representative of the new political generation Kateryna Odarchenko, it turned out to be the most popular in the next political wave?
Oleg Pasternak, a well-known Ukrainian political expert and head of the Center for political intelligence, noted:
“As a young ambitious party leader, Odarchenko meets the needs of a large number of voters, as more than 80% of Ukrainian citizens have a positive attitude to the fact that women go into politics, and almost 40% believe that there are few women in Ukrainian politics. It seems that Kateryna Odarchenko is applying for the role of Yuliia Tymoshenko 2.0.”
In Europe, Javier Nart, Spain’s representative to the European Parliament, said, that he fully supports the creation of such an independent and positive political force from the control of oligarchs as the National platform, which is systematically being built according to the best European models and has a great chance of growing political influence both within the country and active communication with the West.
The party of the former prime minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has become more active (4.4% according to “Active Group”).
With a break of 4 years in political activity, Ukrainian Strategy of Groysman rebranded the party and presented a new political program focused on continuing decentralization. But the technological methods by which Groysman’s party is trying to increase its influence remain old. For example, a frequent way of gathering party supporters before elections is to give people free food in bags with the logo of the party. This method is usually used by parties of oligarchs, corrupt power parties, or parties with large international funding. Since the economic situation in Ukraine today is very difficult, and people are on the verge of poverty, this method works well, especially in rural and remote regions.
The main difference from traditional Ukrainian parties is the independence of the National platform from oligarchic financing and formation from below, through a wide regional representation. The second is to attract a circle of well-known specialists for a broad public discussion in the formation of socio-economic programs, which provided the party with the support of the intellectual elites of Ukraine.
Another political “trick” of the party is the activation of mechanisms of direct democracy — the confrontation in squares in courts, or media political corruption, or the organization of public initiatives (for example, against the closure of schools and hospitals in villages), the implementation of which guarantees support in local communities, and the formation of a wide range of supporters.
The personality of party leader Kateryna Odarchenko is also interesting. As a well — known specialist in the field of political communications and GR, she has extensive political ties with the European Union, where she is associated with the Christian Democratic ideology of the “Angela Merkel Party”, and also actively communicates with American politics. Well, the Ukrainian media sympathize with a professional and obviously beautiful woman, regularly inviting her to television broadcasts, where Kateryna carefully and reasonably defends human-centric positions in Ukrainian politics.
The distrust of Ukrainians and the danger are caused by pro-Russian trends of new political forces that are actively funded by Russia. Putin continues to invest in a hybrid war with Ukraine, finance old and create new political projects in Ukraine.
One of them is the pro-Russian Party of Shariy, which was created by purchasing documents from an existing political party and renaming it. The party’s ideology is formed according to Kremlin patterns. The party’s media activities are conducted by one person — Anatoly Shariy himself. But it mainly consists in criticizing the current government and establishing aggressive anti-government sentiments in Ukrainian society.
In the interview of one well-known Ukrainian publication “Lenta.ru” Shariy allowed the unification of his political force with the “pro-Russian” Opposition platform-for life (OPZZh) party of Viktor Medvedchuk, who is close to Putin’s entourage.
Well-known political expert Kirill Sazonov noted the following about the Party of Shariy:
“We need to tell the truth — the Party of Shariy is a Russian project for Russian money, regulated by Russian political strategists. Its main goal is to put collars on Ukrainians for the glory of the Russian Tsar. The party is financed through the Russian GO, which is not even hidden. The state now urgently needs to carry out tough information work in its field to protect the national security of Ukraine.”
Generally speaking, it is obvious that there is a great demand for new political forces in Ukrainian society.
“Active Group” sociologists in their conclusion noted that the old parties of Ukraine, although they hold quite high positions in the rating, also have high anti-ratings, which continue to grow. Among young political forces sociologists see real prospects for Kateryna Odarchenko and her political force the National platform. Now she is running for the Verkhovna Rada in District 184 in her native Kherson region, where she already has a lot of support. President Zelensky’s ruling party the Servant of the people will also actively fight in the midterm elections this fall. Some regions still retain a high rating of 17–18%.
Ukrainian sociologist-expert, Doctor of Social Sciences and Professor Pavel Kutuyev noted:
“Ukraine needs a real democratic political force that is not subject to the influence of oligarchs, Russia and other external factors. It is democracy that is Ukraine’s real path to civil society, the end of the war, and its emergence as an independent player in international politics.“