Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko seeks support for pro-Europe reform …
Updated
Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko has called on citizens to elect a majority in Sunday’s poll to see through a pro-Europe reform agenda and break with the Soviet past.
Mr Poroshenko, who is expecting a big win for his political bloc in the first parliamentary election since the overthrow of the Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovych, said he saw a “radically new” assembly emerging.
But to push through his reform strategy, he needed “a majority in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), one that is for reform and not corrupt, one that is pro-Ukrainian and pro-European and not pro-Soviet,” he said in a televised address to the people.
“Without such a majority in parliament, the president’s program, which millions of Ukrainians believed in in June, will simply remain on paper,” he said.
Mr Poroshenko was elected president in May by a landslide after “Euromaidan” street protests ousted Mr Yanukovich.
He called Sunday’s snap vote to clear out Yanukovich loyalists from parliament and secure increased legitimacy for Kyiv’s pro-Western leadership in the face of pressure from Russia.
The “Euromaidan” revolution was broadly supported by Western governments but Moscow denounced Mr Yanukovich’s ouster as a coup by a “fascist junta”.
Russia subsequently annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region, which has a Russian majority, and backed separatist rebellions that broke out in the industrialised east.
Those rebellions led to a conflict in which about 3,700 people have been killed.
Mr Poroshenko said he wanted a clear reform plan to emerge from any coalition agreement among the parties rather than “sweet promises” in exchange for government portfolios.
He also pledged to stick to his peace plan to find a negotiated end to the conflict in the east and ruled out ordering any military storm of separatist strongholds such as the city of Donetsk.
“We can only get those territories back by a political settlement and not by military means. Nobody will stop me from seeking a peaceful way out of the situation,” he said.
Meanwhile, US secretary of state John Kerry has urged Moscow to fully implement last month’s ceasefire agreement on Ukraine, the state department said in a statement.
The peace deal, reached last month in the Belarussian capital Minsk between Kyiv, Moscow and the pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine, includes monitoring and verification by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on both sides of the border.
In a phone call, “Secretary Kerry and foreign minister Lavrov discussed the situation in Ukraine and Secretary Kerry emphasised the need for Russia to implement all 12 points in the September 5 Minsk Agreement,” the statement said of Friday’s conversation.
Reuters/AFP
Topics:
government-and-politics,
elections,
ukraine
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