KIEV, Nov. 11 – President Viktor Yanukovych’s Regions Party following recent elections has failed to secure a simple majority in Parliament and will have to rely on independents and communists to form a pro-government coalition.
The Regions Party will control 185 seats in the 450-seat Parliament, while three opposition parties will control a total of 178 seats, according to figures officially released by the Central Election Commission on Sunday.
The Communist Party is set to control 32 seats, while independent lawmakers will hold 43 seats. Another 7 seats are to be controlled by four small parties, the figures show.
Five seats will be decided at new elections in five majority districts after the CEC has failed to establish results there amid allegations of sweeping election fraud. The elections will take place after special legislation is approved, which may take months.
The released data underscore a setback for the Regions Party, which has originally hoped to secure between 230 and 240 seats in the new Parliament, according to people familiar with plans at the ruling party.
The election results also signal new political challenges for Yanukovych, suggesting it will be extremely difficult for him to engineer his reelection in March 2015.
As the Regions Party received 30% in the party-list vote, the three opposition groups – all campaigning on an anti-Yanukovych platform - secured about 50% of the vote, underscoring the challenges.
“These elections proved that Ukrainian society is alive and able to respond to a malignant tumor of the [Yanukovych] mafia,” Yuriy Lutsenko, a jailed opposition leader and a former interior minister, wrote in his blog. “The first shock of the deadly threat has passed and healthy defense mechanisms have worked.”
Batkivshchyna, or Fatherland, party, the biggest of the three opposition groups, will control 101 seats in Parliament, while liberal Udar, of Punch, will have 40 seats and the nationalist Svoboda, or Freedom, will control 37 seats, according to CEC.
A half of Parliament was elected on party-list vote, while another half was elected in 225 majority districts across Ukraine.
The Regions Party collected 30% of the vote after receiving 6.11 million ballots, followed by Batkivshchyna’s 25.54% and 5.20 million ballots and Udar’s 13.96% and 2.84 million ballots, CEC reported after 100% of ballots had been counted.
The Communist Party collected 13.18% after getting 2.68 votes in its favor, and the Svoboda party got 10.44% and 2.12 million votes, according to CEC.
Overall, 20.79 million voters have come on October 28 to cast their ballots, according to CEC.
The official voting results will have to be published by official parliamentary newspaper Holos Ukrayiny by November 15.
Meanwhile, opposition groups complained the elections were marred by fraud and manipulations at many majority districts and reiterated their earlier demands to re-count ballots at 13 districts where victories had been allegedly stolen from opposition candidates.
After the CEC has refused to do so, Batkivshchyna has lashed out with a statement accusing the commission of “illegal decision” that “legalizes the theft of votes in those districts.”
“We will never accept this decision by the CEC and will never accept these people as lawmakers, but they will rather be criminals,” Batkivshchyna said in the statement. “We will do our best to make sure these people are not sworn in.” (tl/ez)
