Ukraine Picks Moderates over Radicals in War-Time Vote
The tense day’s clearest victories were scored by the president’s Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the National Front group of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
The pro-Western president and his more nationalist premier — a trusted partner of world lenders such as the IMF — were running neck-and-neck and well ahead the rest of the crowded field.
Some analysts said they might just collect enough votes needed to form their own government, AFP reported.
“Voters gave a vote of confidence in the current leadership,” said Volodymyr Fesenko of Kyiv’s Penta political research institute.
“But the voters want them to work together and not fight.”
Surprise performers in the vote included a party that promotes conservative and Christian values and is little known outside Ukraine.
But extremists such as the Right Sector group, which the Kremlin considers a fascist organisation, failed to clear the five-percent threshold for entering parliament under proportional representation.
Several more right-wing outfits barely cleared the hurdle while the pro-Russian Communist Party failed to win any seats in Ukraine for the first time since its founding by Lenin nearly a century ago.
Here is a look at who else besides the president and his prime minister can walk away satisfied with Sunday’s results — and who is lamenting missed chances and a possible end of their political careers.
The socially conservative group was formed less than two years ago in the staunchly nationalist western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
The group is spearheaded by city mayor Andriy Sadovyi and comprised of young faces who promote traditional values preached for centuries across eastern European countries such as Poland and the nearby Baltic States.