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NY Times, Oct. 28 2014
Ukrainian Voters Affirm Embrace of Europe and Reject Far Right
Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Petro Poroshenko Solidify Stances
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
KIEV, Ukraine — In a parliamentary election with historic ramifications,
Ukrainians overwhelmingly reaffirmed on Sunday their support for the
ideals of the February revolt in the Maidan and the country’s push to
the West, while rejecting far-right nationalist parties.
The result, with pro-European political parties led by President Petro
O. Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy P. Yatsenyuk winning the
largest number of seats in Parliament, solidifies the authority of a
government that, despite firm Western backing, has been unable to
suppress a violent, pro-Russian separatist movement along Ukraine’s
eastern border.
The challenge of soothing concerns in eastern Ukraine will be heightened
by the fact that voting was impossible in many parts of the region,
where pro-Russian rebels largely made good on their promise to block the
vote. Voting also did not take place in Crimea, which was annexed by
Russia in March. As a result, as many as 27 of the 450 seats in
Parliament — 12 in Crimea and 15 in eastern Ukraine — will remain
unfilled, at least initially.
With nearly 70 percent of votes counted by Monday evening, Mr.
Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front had garnered a surprising 21.7 percent of
votes, slightly outpacing the president’s coalition, Bloc Petro
Poroshenko, which had 21.4 percent in the nationwide vote for party
preference, according to the Central Election Commission.
Mr. Poroshenko’s party, however, was on track to win a larger number of
races in the individual districts that fill half of the Parliament’s 450
seats, virtually assuring that it would be the dominant force in any
majority coalition.
In a sign of how intensely Ukrainians wanted to break from their Soviet
past, not a single Communist Party candidate was elected. In a message
on Twitter, Mr. Poroshenko noted that it would be the first time in 96
years that Communists would not be represented in the Ukrainian legislature.
Mr. Poroshenko was combining the current Parliament, called the
Verkhovna Rada, with early Soviet entities that existed after 1917.
More relevant to Ukraine’s current situation, however, was the poor
showing of the far-right parties that Russia had accused of seizing
control of Ukrainian politics, and that the Kremlin said were a reason
for its invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Right Sector, portrayed as the spearhead of a neofascist coup by
Russia’s government-controlled news media since the ouster of the former
president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, received only 1.6 percent of the vote,
far short of the minimum 5 percent threshold to join Parliament.
A Right Sector leader, Dimytro Yarsosh, did apparently win a seat,
however, by running as an individual candidate in his native region of
Dnipropetrovsk.
The outcome seemed certain to strengthen the positions of Ukraine’s
current leaders and will most likely give them the broad support in
Parliament they require to push ahead with urgent, and potentially
painful, changes as the country struggles with an economy on the brink
of collapse.
The big pro-European majority also creates a challenge, however. As the
pro-Western leaders try to end the uprising in the east, they will have
to persuade people there that they, too, will be fairly represented in Kiev.
“We have tough times ahead,” Mr. Yatsenyuk acknowledged in a statement
after polling stations closed on Sunday, “but together we will overcome
all difficulties.”
In Moscow, the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, told reporters that
Russia was prepared to accept the election results, though he repeated
the Kremlin’s frequent criticisms that the Kiev government was
responsible for fracturing Ukraine.
In Washington, the reaction was much more positive. President Obama
issued a statement congratulating the Ukrainian government and its
people, while also accusing Russian-backed separatists of preventing the
voting in the embattled east. He called on Russia to use its influence
with the separatists.
Sunday’s vote represented a stunning success, personally, for Mr.
Yatsenyuk, a skilled technocrat who is respected by political colleagues
in the West but has historically lacked sparkle on the campaign trail.
His party far outperformed the predictions of public opinion surveys
leading up to the vote on Sunday, and the show of muscle seemed to
assure that he could keep the post of prime minister. Even on Election
Day, he acknowledged that was uncertain and that his political future
hinged on the outcome of the vote.
One party that is generally, if not quite accurately, regarded as
pro-Russian cleared the 5 percent threshold needed to form a faction in
Parliament. The party, the Opposition Bloc, includes many former allies
of Mr. Yanukovych and could prove crucial to any political settlement to
the crisis in eastern Ukraine.
As of Monday evening, the Opposition Bloc had won 9.8 percent. Mr.
Yarosh, the leader of the right-wing Right Sector party, said his group
would not accept the election results because of the participation of
the Opposition Bloc and the former allies of Mr. Yanukovych.
The government said there were no major problems during Sunday’s vote.
International observers gave the election high technical marks in their
preliminary findings, saying the government had done a good job, at
least in the areas where it controlled voting stations.
Two other parties were certain to have sizable delegations in the
Parliament: a new party called Self-Help, led by Mayor Andriy Sadovyi of
Lviv, the biggest city in western Ukraine, and the populist Radical
Party, led by Oleh Lyashko, a flamboyant lawmaker known for
attention-grabbing stunts including missions to capture separatists.
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