Ukrainian election today: exit polls vs. actual numbers

It would be interesting to see how it plays out in Ukrainian election. On October 31, in a first round of voting, economist Yushchenko (liberal and an advocate of gradual moves towards integration with Europe) beat Yanukovich, who is backed by Ukraine's outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and Russia's Vladimir Putin, by the tiniest of margins.
Today, after a second round of voting, the final result of the Ukrainian "National" exit poll puts liberal challenger Viktor Yushchenko at 54 percent, with Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich at 43 percent. Pretty impressive margin! The "National" exit poll was organized by a group of international and Ukrainian sociological centers. 30,000 people were polled.  However with about 9% of votes counted, Putin's protégé leads 53% to 41%.

Ahead of the second round of voting Western countries have expressed concern about foul play. Richard Lugar was among other international observers monitoring Sunday's voting.  By tomorrow all votes will be counted and if Prime Minister is ahead I am curious how they are going to treat/explain exit polls.  And how international community, US included, will react?!

By the way, Yushchenko (the challenger) earlier threatened to stage street protests if there was any attempt to deny him victory by fraudulent means.  Oh, and turnout was about 80%...

•  Are the exit polls wrong again?

  AFP is reporting there initial results. As you say, the reaction there is likely to be fiercer. Hope they win.

  by Athenian on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:02:58 PM PDT

•  The same Bush fraud.

  by hillarious on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:08:49 PM PDT

•  it's crazy there

  My friend (a journalist) in Kiev is instant messaging me now. There are reports of imported thugs from Eastern Ukraine going around pouring paint into ballot boxes, setting them on fire, even spilling mercury in one polling station. A police officer was shot dead.

  The exit polls were accurate in the first round, once it was finally counted. They showed Yushchenko won.

  by bartona on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:09:28 PM PDT

  •  gee, I hope U.S. observers

    aren't paying attention.  I'd hate to give the Republicans any new ideas.

    by rusrivman on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:14:40 PM PDT

    •  Bush helped his friend Vladimir...

      ...by introducing him to the CEO of Diebold.

      by DC Pol Sci on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:29:39 PM PDT

•  who needs Diebold

  when you've got an endless supply of unemployed youth with baseball (or other) bats?

  By the way, results are improving for Yushchenko now, he's at 49% with 60% of the country reporting results.

  by bartona on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 06:36:57 PM PDT

•  yuschenko! yuschenko!

  on black tuesday i was out at the crack of dawn flyering for a local congressional candidate and for kerry.  this old ukrainian lady came by and took some pics of the polling place - me, how i was outside the signs to keep back 75 feet and all that kind of stuff, so she could send some back to ukraine to show folks how it was done (it was a mainly wealthy white precinct, so it was a fair, orderly, easy access polling place, natch).

  anyway she was lobbying me for yushchenko! she even made me repeat the name to make sure i remembered how to pronounce it correctly.  she wanted me to write to washington to lobby for him.  not sure what she thought that would accomplish.  and she was pretty clear that yanukovich is a puppet of moscow, and bad for ukraine.  i wish them better luck than we had here.

  by zeke L on Sun Nov 21, 2004 at 08:15:49 PM PDT

•  Government?

  The mafia runs the government there.

  by nephalim on Mon Nov 22, 2004 at 01:07:13 AM PDT