Poll: 27% of Ukrainians have better attitude to Zelensky, 30% worse attitude to Poroshenko following debates
KYIV. April 23 (Interfax) - An absolute majority of Ukrainians followed the election debates between incumbent President Petro Poroshenko and his challenger, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the Olimpiysky Stadium on April 19, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) found after conducting a series of telephone polls.
As many as 80% of respondents said they had followed the debates one way or another, while 20% replied in the negative. The poll showed that 58% of respondents watched the TV broadcast, 20% watched them on the Internet, and 1.5% listened to a radio version.
About 50% of those who followed the debates said they believed Zelensky had won them, 14% gave preference to Poroshenko, and 33% are of the view that there was no clear winner.
Asked whether their attitudes toward the presidential candidates had changed following the debates, 12% of those polled said their attitudes toward Zelensky had worsened and 27% improved, while 30% said that their attitudes toward Poroshenko worsened and 7% improved.
The KIIS conducted a so-called rolling poll via daily telephone interviews from April 6 to 20. The sample was said to be representative of the adult population of Ukraine. The organization conducted 3,600 interviews from April 6 to 18 and 500 interviews each on April 19 and 20.
Zelensky garnered over 73% and Poroshenko over 24% of the vote in the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election on April 21.