19-07-2010 14:30 http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) has published the results of several studies dedicated to the attitude of citizens to a new system of the election of local council deputies, as well as the sympathies of voters to probable participants in these elections, according to the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper.

According to the institute, 71% of respondents fully or partially supported the idea of electing the majority of deputies under majority system, where voters can vote for concrete candidates rather than party tickets. Some 19.4% of respondents were undecided, and 8.5% had negative feelings about this idea. The respondents were also asked which party or bloc they would vote if the elections to regional councils had been under party tickets on July 18. It should be noted that under a new law on the election of local council deputies, the heads of villages, towns and cities, the blocs of political parties are not allowed to participate in local elections. According to the results of the studies, the three percent election threshold can pass four political parties: the Party of Regions (39%), the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (13%), Serhiy Tihipko's Strong Ukraine Party (8%) and Arseniy Yatseniuk's Front for Change Party (4%). The All-Ukrainian Svoboda Union would have received 2.5% of the vote and the communist Party of Ukraine 21%. The institute said in a statement that "the study gives a very rough estimate of the situation in some regions." A total of 5,507 respondents from all Ukrainian regions participated in the surveys conducted in June 2010.