Opposition leader, former prime minister and head of Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party Yulia Tymoshenko remained the frontrunner in Ukraine’s forthcoming presidential election race, a new joint poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), the Razumkov Center and Rating pollster showed on November 13.

Tymoshenko has improved her position and widened the lead over her rivals with 21% of those that have made up their mind on how they will vote plumping for her, the poll found. 

In the previous poll in September Tymoshenko also increased her lead by two points on earlier polls to 19.3%, with another 11.9% prepared to vote for the incumbent Petro Poroshenko, who has also improved his position by three points now his campaign has started in earnest.

In the new poll actor Vladimir Zelensky is backed by 11%, while Poroshenko came equal third with 10%, along with Civil Position Party leader Anatoly Gritsenko also with 10%.

Co-chairman of the Opposition Block Yuri Boiko was backed by 9%, Radical Party leader Oleh Lyashko 8%, singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk 6%, and leader of opposition party Ours, Evgeny Murayev, is supported by 5% The rating of other candidates is less than 5%, according to KIIS.

Tymoshenko is the favourite in all the regions throughout the country, except Donbas where she trails Boiko.

One of the quirks of the Ukraine poll is that Tymoshenko was the most hated politician in the country topping the “would not chose under any circumstances” category, but has lost this honour to Poroshenko who now leads the anti-popular poll with more than half of respondents saying they would never vote for him.

"Every fifth voter believes that Tymoshenko will become the next president. Yet 14% of those who plan to participate in the ballot think that Poroshenko is going to win. Less than 4% of those surveyed said that other politicians can take up the highest post in the country," KIIS stated.

The Batkivshchina Party also remains the favourite political party to win the parliament election that is slated for September next year, with 22% of those polled ready to support it, according to the survey.