Ukrainian parliamentary elections: six parties enter new Parliament

Ukrainian Parliament building
(Image: Wikimapia)

Ukrainians have recently voted for the new Parliament during the early parliamentary elections held on Sunday, 26 October, amid the tense situation in the country, as the war in Eastern Ukrainian Donetsk and Luhansk regions is ongoing.

The process of counting the votes came to its end, and Ukrainian High Electoral Commission has finally counted all 100% of the votes and announced the official results of these parliamentary elections. According to the High Electoral Commission announcement six political parties have reached 5% necessary to enter Ukrainian Parliament according to the law.

The Party Narodny Front (People’s Front) headed by the current Prime Minister and former political companion of Yulia Tymoshenko Arseniy Yatsenyuk. His party has gained 22,14% of the citizens’ votes, leaving behind political part of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which used to receive the highest numbers of votes during the sociologic polls and research made several times before the elections.

Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc came the second with 21,81% of votes, what became an unpleasant surprise for the presidential political power.

The third result though appeared to be really unexpected and surprising for many, as the recently created political party Samopomich (Self-Reliance), created by Lviv governor Andriy Sadovy, has received 10,97% of the citizens’ votes, becoming number three in the polls. This party includes new faces uniting young civil activists and activists of Maidan protests, commanders of battalions fighting in Eastern Ukraine, lawyers and many professionals, representing their power as a new party aimed to work for development of Ukraine and advocating for decisive measures to be taken and reforms to be implemented. Samopomich Party included also some members of the young Volya Party (Liberty Party), headed by Yegor Sobolev, a prominent Ukrainian activist, who works a lot for implementing lustration law in Ukraine and for fighting corruption.

Oppositional Bloc has received 9,43% of votes and demonstrated strong divisions, exisiting in Ukrainian society, as this political party has actually united many controversial figures from the past regime, many members of the dissolved Party of Regions, connected with the former President Victor Yanukovich, and also some members of the Communist party, though the Communist Party has also participated in the polls. This relatively high result of the Oppositional Bloc demonstrated clearly that a big part of Ukrainian society still share rather pro-Russian than pro-Ukrainian views. Though it’s worth mentioning that the majority of votes given to the oppositional Bloc came from Eastern and partially Southern Ukrainian regions, which used to support Party of Regions before and which supported Victor Yanukovich during 2010 presidential elections.

Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko came the fifth with 7,44% of votes, while Batkivshyna Party (Homeland Party) of Yulia Tymoshenko came only the sixth with surprisingly low result of 5,68% votes.

Thus, 225 seats in the new Parliament will be distributed among those six parties, and these political powers will receive the following number of seats:

Narodny Front (People’s Front) will receive 64 seats,

Petro Poroshenko Bloc will receive 63 seats,

Samopomich (Self-Reliance) will get 32 seats,

Oppositional Bloc gets 27 seats,

Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko gets 22 seats,

And Batkivshyna party (Homeland Party) gets 17 seats.

In addition to that other 198 MPs will enter new Parliament according to the majority lists polls. This issue is one of the most controversial ones, as the strongest fight is ongoing for these seats. It’s worth mentioning also that some electoral districts in some cities of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, currently occupied by pro-Russian rebels, and Crimea, occupied and annexed by Russia, didn’t have the chance to vote, so these places are expected to be “kept” for the candidates.

Meanwhile, coalition talks regarding the key issues of the state’s policies and forming of the new government are ongoing between the heads and members of the parties entering new Parliament.

Originally published for Info-News.