Ukraine in Arabic | Half of Ukrainians voted in historical elections
KYIV/Ukraine in Arabic/ Ukrainians voted Sunday in a snap election for a parliament President Petro Poroshenko hopes will take a more pro-European stance and sweep out the remaining supporters of ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. Rebel held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, home to around 3 million people, will not take part in the official vote, instead going to the polls Nov. 2 to elect their own government.
Crimea, which seceded and allied itself with Russia, also will not take part in the vote but Ukrainians that have kept their Ukrainian citizenship will be allowed to travel into Ukraine and take part.
According to Central Election Commission (CEC) voter turnout at all 198 constituencies in Ukraine has reached 52.42%. The highest turnout was registered in Lviv region (70%), Ternopil region (68.28%), and Volyn region (64.85%). The lowest turnout was seen in Donetsk region (32.4%), Luhansk region (32.87%), and Odesa region (39.52%). The voter turnout in Kyiv was 55.86%, according to rough estimates.
Voters solidified the country’s shift away from Russia’s sphere of influence and removed the legislature elected under its former Russian-backed president, Viktor Yanukovych.
The monumental vote, largely overshadowed by the ongoing war in Ukraine’s east that has killed more than 3,500 people, was the first parliamentary election in the country since bloody street protests ousted Yanukovych and replaced him with an interim technocratic government in February.
Western-friendly billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko, known as the “Chocolate King” for his ownership of the country’s largest confectionary, was elected president in May and dissolved the country’s parliament in August, paving the way for Sunday’s snap elections.
Addressing the nation on the eve of the vote, Poroshenko said: "It's time to complete a full reset of power."
"I believe in a deep upgrade and rejuvenation of the Parliament," the president said. "You will see, this will be a radically new Parliament."
While final results are not expected until next week, exit polls showed the pro-Western parties leading by a wide margin over nationalist and far-right parties.
Poroshenko press secretary Svyatoslav Tsegolko described the result as "a landslide vote of confidence."
Ukraine uses a mixed electoral system for its parliamentary elections, under which half the country’s parliament is elected by a proportional system of party lists. To enter parliament, a party must win at least 5 percent of votes. The other half is elected through single-mandate voting districts with a plurality rule, meaning the candidate with the most votes will win. The system has allowed for wide-scale rigging in previous elections.
But the vote on Sunday went off without any major hitches or significant violations, Poroshenko wrote on Twitter.
Giving him another reason to be pleased, preliminary tallies show his party, Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, came out on top, taking some 24 percent of the vote but not obtaining an absolute majority in parliament. Consequently, the president will likely be forced to form a coalition government with the Popular Front party of Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which got about 23 percent.
Following them in Sunday’s vote was the Western-leaning Samopomosch Party with just under 13 percent. The Radial Party of pitchfork-wielding politician Oleh Lyashko, who billed himself a "kingmaker" in the run-up to elections, took a mere 8 percent.
Meanwhile, the right-wing nationalist Svoboda Party took a little more than 7 percent of the vote, and the Batkivshchyna Party of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko took less than 6 percent percent, a disappointing turnout for the former political prisoner whose popularity has plummeted since her release.
But the big news of the night was that, for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine, the pro-Russian Communist Party failed to win the 5 percent of votes needed to enter parliament and will therefore will not be represented in the new government.
Three other parties failed to break the threshold, including the pro-Russian Strong Ukraine party, and the far-right Right Sector party.
Opora, an election watchdog, reported that turnout was 51 percent. However, due to the ongoing war in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and hundreds of thousands of residents were effectively disenfranchised.
By some estimates, just 25 percent of residents in Luhansk region and 45 percent in Donetsk region were able to vote. More than 800,000 people have been internally displaced since the onslaught of the conflict in April, according to the United Nations.
In Mariupol, a seaside city about 70 miles south of Donetsk, voters turned out in big numbers to cast their ballots.
One voter was Marisya, who declined to give her last name for fear of persecution. But the 75-year-old said she had voted for the Opposition Bloc, "because I don't trust the current Ukrainian authorities: They've ruined our Donetsk and almost surrendered our Mariupol."
Alexandr Mitrofanovich, 64, also voted for Opposition Bloc, he said, "because Mariupol's voice has to be heard in parliament."
In several surrounding cities, voters found themselves unable to cast their ballots as separatist leaders did not allow for Ukrainian parliamentary elections to be held in the areas they control. Moscow-backed rebels are planning to hold their own elections on Nov. 2 to choose a prime minister and a legislature of their own as they attempt to legitimize the self-declared “people’s republics.”
In Donetsk, the unofficial separatist capital, the only elections on locals’ minds on Sunday were their own. A rally in a central city park brought out street vendors serving traditional food from Russia and Belarus while costumed performers danced on stage to howling female vocalists.
Camouflaged-clad gunmen roamed the crowd, acting as security. Some, however, brought their families. A rebel dad carried his young son atop his shoulders with his machine gun in tow as his wife held his arm. Several others strolled to a pizzeria, where those dressed in fatigues outnumbered others who weren’t sporting such attire.
Kiev has said it will not recognize the separatist elections next weekend.