Ukraine voters deliver a solid victory to pro-West parties
The parties of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk appear to have won big in Ukraine's parliamentary elections on Sunday, with each taking about 21 percent of the vote, according to incomplete preliminary results. A third Europe-looking party, Selfhelp, has 11 percent so far, giving Poroshenko a solid majority governing coalition and a mandate to end the pro-Moscow rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
"This is a big victory for pro-Ukrainian and statehood (anti-Putin) parties, which will be in the vast majority in the new parliament," says Standard Bank analyst Timothy Ash. It was also a "big vote for the Western reform agenda," which will cause new tension with Russia. Allies of ousted Russia-aligned President Viktor Yanukovich appear to have won about 10 percent of the vote, but the communists didn't win enough votes to get any seats — marking the first time since Ukraine gained independence from Russia that parliament won't have any communists.
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