Sociologists warn of lack of specialists to hold exit polls

The Director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Iryna Bekeshkina and the President of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Valery Khmelko warn that there are not enough professional sociologists in Ukraine to run exit polls at all 225 single-mandate electoral districts (50% of the total, the others are based on party lists according to the system criticized both within Ukraine and abroad – translator).

Ms Bekeshkina believes that at single-mandate electoral districts there will be a complete free-for-all, . There won’t be enough sociologists for all single-mandate electoral districts and they’ll get anybody calling themselves a sociologist. It will be very difficult to check what qualifications they have.  Mr Khmelko agrees and says that Ukraine simply isn’t in a position to provide 225 professional sociologists.

As reported, Ms Bekeshkina recently expressed concern over the surge of inadequate public opinion surveys.  She said that the situation was worse than during previous elections in that earlier such dodgy “studies” were not reported by leading television channels.