This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/22/ukraine-election-early-results-indicate-big-win-president-party

The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Ukraine election: early results indicate big win for president's party Ukraine election: early results indicate big win for president's party
(about 1 hour later)
The Ukrainian president’s party has won a majority of seats in Sunday’s parliamentary election, according to early results. Ukraine’s comedian-turned-president is on course for full domination of the country’s political scene after early results from Sunday’s parliamentary elections indicated his newly founded Servant of the People party would win a majority of seats.
With nearly half of the ballots counted on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party, Servant of the People (SOTP), is projected to win 42.4% of the vote. Results from single-mandate constituencies also show Zelenskiy’s allies winning in at least 115 of the 199 districts, meaning SOTP is projected to win an outright majority of seats at the supreme rada. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a political neophyte whose only previous experience was playing the president in a television sitcom also called Servant of the People, won presidential elections in April and called for early parliamentary elections soon after his inauguration.
Of the 424 seats in the Ukrainian parliament, 225 lawmakers are elected on party rolls and 199 in single-mandate districts. With nearly half the votes counted on Monday, Servant of the People was projected to win 42% of the vote. Combined with a strong showing in single-mandate districts, Zelenskiy was on course to win an absolute majority in the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. If confirmed, it would be the first time in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history that a single party commands an outright majority.
If confirmed, SOTP will become the first party in Ukraine’s modern history to form an absolute parliamentary majority. Four other parties were set to clear the 5% threshold required for getting into parliament through the party list seats. The pro-Russian businessman Viktor Medvedchuk, who visited Vladimir Putin in Moscow days before the election, came second in the vote with 13%, gaining the majority of his support from the Russian-speaking east of the country.
Four other parties were on course to pass the 5% threshold necessary to get party-list seats, according to early results. The party of former president Petro Poroshenko, who was trounced by Zelenskiy in the presidential elections, came third, while parties led by veteran politician Yulia Tymoshenko and the country’s best-known rock star, Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, were also set to gain seats.
A party led by one of the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s closest associates, the Ukrainian tycoon Viktor Medvedchuk, was in second place with 13% of the vote. It was followed by the European Solidarity party of the former president Petro Poroshenko, whom Zelenskiy defeated in a landslide in the country’s spring presidential election. Prior to the vote there had been suggestions that Servant of the People could form a coalition with Vakarchuk’s Voice party, given that both parties ran on a platform of reforms and political changes. With an absolute majority, that will not be necessary.
Zelenskiy, a comedian before entering politics, called the election three months ahead of schedule because the parliament was dominated by his opponents. He said a majority at the Rada would support his promised fight against corruption as well as other reforms. Speaking on Sunday night at his campaign headquarters, Zelenskiy said his main priorities were “to end the war, return our prisoners and defeat the corruption that persists in Ukraine”. He said he wanted a “new face and a specialist in the economy” to become the next prime minister.
Zelenskiy took office in May and soon founded SOTP, which took its name from the television comedy in which he played a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president. Zelenskiy’s popularity has come amid widespread disillusionment with politics in Ukraine, five years after the Maidan revolution brought a change of the political guard. Most Ukrainians were disappointed with Poroshenko’s tenure, believing he did not do enough to tackle entrenched corruption and the grip over politics of powerful oligarchs.
Poroshenko’s time in office was made more difficult by Russia’s backing for a separatist movement in east Ukraine. The separatist territories, funded and armed by Russia, are not under the control of Kyiv and the war has cost more than 13,000 lives.
Now, Zelenskiy will face the same challenges, and could see his popularity fall fast if he does not make progress. He has already faced questions about his closeness to controversial oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy, who returned to Ukraine from exile shortly after Zelenskiy’s victory.
In the east, occasional fighting continues, and four Ukrainian soldiers were killed by sniper fire and mine blasts over the weekend. Zelenskiy has used the language of compromise and dialogue, discarding Poroshenko’s more divisive nationalist rhetoric, but how much progress he can make will depend in part upon the will of the Kremlin. Zelenskiy held his first telephone conversation with Putin recently, but the two have yet to meet.
UkraineUkraine
Volodymyr ZelenskiyVolodymyr Zelenskiy
EuropeEurope
newsnews
Share on FacebookShare on Facebook
Share on TwitterShare on Twitter
Share via EmailShare via Email
Share on LinkedInShare on LinkedIn
Share on PinterestShare on Pinterest
Share on WhatsAppShare on WhatsApp
Share on MessengerShare on Messenger
Reuse this contentReuse this content