Klitschko has more support than Yanukovych - poll
KYIV. June 17 (Interfax) - Vitaly Klitschko, a famous boxer and leader of the UDAR party, would have received the votes of 15.9% of those questioned in a recent opinion poll if a presidential election had been held late last month while incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych would have had the support of only 14.3% of respondents.
The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which carried out the survey, said in a statement on Monday that 9.5% of respondents would have voted for Arseny Yatsenyuk, parliamentary leader of the Fatherland (Batkivshchyna) party, that 5.8% would have supported Svoboda party leader Oleh Tyahnybok, and that 3.7% would have backed Communist leader Petro Symonenko.
Klitschko and Tyahnybok had 7% and 3% more support respectively in last month's survey than in a poll in June 2012, the statement said.
Yanukovych, Yatsenyuk and Symonenko lost 3%, 2% and 1% respectively between the two polls.
Klitschko derives most of his support from central and western Ukraine, with 23% backing expressed by respondents in each of the two regions. Yanukovych is chiefly popular in the east (26%) and south (21%).
The institute questioned 2,030 people throughout the country on May 21-30. The margin of error was put at 3.3%.