KIEV, March 26 ??“ The ruling Regions Party has been facing a sharp drop in public support over the past several months following an increase in housing and utility prices, a poll showed Monday.

The Regions Party, led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, received support from 18.6% of respondents, according to the poll conducted by the Razumkov Center, a Kiev-based independent think tank.

This is the first time the party??™s support declined to less than 20% over the past 1.5 years and is sharply lower compared with 32.14% the party scored at the general election in March 2006.

Two opposition parties followed the Regions Party in the poll. The group led by former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko received support from 15.4%, while President Viktor Yushchenko??™s Our Ukraine would get 7.3%. A year ago, the Tymoshenko group scored 22.3%, while Our Ukraine scored 13.95%.

The poll was conducted between February 22 and March 3 throughout Ukraine among 2,012 respondents with margin of error at 2.3%, according to Razumkov Center.

Although the Tymoshenko??™s and Our Ukraine??™s ratings have been declining persistently, this is the first time that the Regions Party had recorded such a steep decline.

This shows that public support for the Regions Party, including in eastern regions of Ukraine, has been dwindling following the introduction of higher housing and utilities prices after a natural gas price hike in early 2006. The prices doubled and in some cases tripled since the start of the year.

The development may give more political reasons for Yushchenko to consider the dismissal of Parliament as an option in hopes to replace the pro-Russian government of Yanukovych with a pro-Western government.

Although the figures suggest the pro-Russian coalition may get more votes, the trend suggests that the situation has been changing in favor of the pro-Western groups.

Both, the Tymoshenko group and Our Ukraine, have been calling for the dismissal of Parliament, but Yushchenko had insisted that the Constitutional Court must issue its ruling.

Regions party officials claimed that Yushchenko has been planning to meet Constitutional Court judges either Monday or Tuesday, and interpreted this as an attempt to win the ruling.

Yushchenko??™s spokeswoman said no such meeting had been scheduled.

Meanwhile, three other parties may be able to enter Parliament, according to the poll.

The Communist Party would collect 5.5% of the vote, compared with 3.66% in March 2006, and the Socialist Party would get 3.3% of the vote, compared with 5.69% a year ago.

A new nationalist party, Ukrayinska Pravytsia, which is likely to be created from the merger of several nationalist groups, would score 3.1% of the vote, according to the poll.

A party needs to collect at least 3% of the vote to enter Parliament, according to Ukrainian law. (tl/ez)