Yushchenko's Rock Bottom

President Viktor Yushchenko

With a tumbling economy, and endless political stalemate, it's no surprise that Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko has a low approval rating.

In a new poll, carried out by the respected Razumkov Center, where participants were asked who they would vote for in a presidential election, only 4 percent of respondents choose Yushchenko.

Prime Minister Tymoshenko got 17.9 percent, Party of Regions head Yanukovych 19.5 percent, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk 13.4 percent.

Across the board, the poll found that support for leading politicians was dropping.

In the Ternopil region, in western Ukraine, once a Tymoshenko stronghold, support for her party dropped sharply in a local election on March 15.

This from Ukrainianjournal.com:

The preliminary results do not look good for Tymoshenko. Her party received support from just more than 8 percent of voters in Ternopil region, which had been once overwhelmingly controlled by Tymoshenko, preliminary poll results indicate."

The election is seen as a test of whether Tymoshenko - once the frontrunner - can survive politically the next 10 months of severe economic crisis and run successfully for the presidency in January 2010.

-- Luke Allnutt