Kiev, 27 April: Nearly half of the Ukrainian electorate support the idea that the parties and blocs elected to the Ukrainian parliament on 31 March should press for Ukraine's membership of the union state that already unites Russia and Belarus.
As many as 45 of those polled by the Democratic Initiatives fund and the firm Sotsis said they are for such a measure, 28 per cent opposed it, saying their representatives in parliament should not campaign for the admission to the Russia-Belarus union state, and 26 per cent were undecided.
The opinion poll of 1,200 respondents was held on 6-14 April at the request of the All-Ukraine Public Monitoring Committee. The error range is within 3 per cent.
The science doyen of the Democratic Initiatives fund, Iryna Bekeshyna said the question of Ukraine's affiliation with the Russia-Belarus union was not the most important of all for the Ukrainian electorate, who are focused primarily on economic issues.
The poll also found 21 per cent want the political forces elected to campaign for faster economic reform, while 25 per cent want a return to a centralized government-run economy, and 27 per cent a cautious, gradual progress to a market-type economy.
Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in English 1142 gmt 27 Apr 02