KIEV, September 17. /TASS/. Almost a half of all Ukrainian citizens believe their country does not have a single political party representing their interests, suggest results of an opinion poll taken by the opinion research service of the Alexander Razumkov Center in connection with the forthcoming local elections.
Respondents were asked, among other things, if Ukraine had a party which they could describe as the one reflecting their interests.
"As many as 48.3% of those polled believe there are no such parties while 33.8% gave a positive answer and 17.9% were undecided or had no answer," UNIAN news agency quoted the poll.
Along with it, 57.4% respondents said they had not heard anything about the activity of local cells of any parties in their regions.
The poll also exposed the confidence of 57.7% Ukrainians that political parties represent the interests of financial and business corporations. A total of 37.3% said the same about the interests of party leaders and 24.2% related the parties to the interests of state power.
Only 11.2% respondents said the parties represented the voters’ interests and 15.6% admitted they had no answer.
The first poll was taken from April 29 through to May 5, 2015, in all regions of Ukraine except the areas of the south-east Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not under the control of pro-Kiev armed units and constitute the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk and Luhansk republics.
The research embraced more than 5,000 people all in all. The Razumkov Center experts used a sampling that reflected the Ukrainian population’s basic social and demographic parameters.
On October 25, Ukraine will hold local elections. An overhauled election law forbids participation of party blocs and makes a demand for one fixed candidature on the open electoral tickets.
The deputies of rural and village councils will be elected on the basis of the majority system. The vote threshold for political parties has been raised to 5% from the previous 3%.