Azernews.Az

By Sabina Idayatova

President Victor Yanukovich's party leads the polls in Ukraine's parliamentary elections held on Sunday, with more than half of the ballots counted.

The ruling Party of Regions gained 34.86 percent of votes, while Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) of ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko got 22.07 percent. The Communist Party of Ukraine is third, with 14.86 percent. UDAR of boxing champion Vitaly Klichko got 12.88 percent, and Svoboda (Freedom) gained 8.44 percent. Other parties got less than 5 percent, according to preliminary tallies.

Single-mandate candidates of the Party of Regions lead in Zaporozhskaya, Donetsk, Kharkiv regions and Sevastopol. They failed to win at the polls in any district of the Rovensk, Ternopol, Lviv, Ivano-Frankoskaya, Chernigov and Volyn regions.

Alexei Vlasov, Editor-in-Chief of Vestnik Kavkaza information and analytical agency, said that the Party of Regions was strengthening its positions in majority districts. He believes that the party may form a coalition with UDAR.

Vlasov also said he does not expect the Party of Regions or the communists to form a coalition with the nationalists.

OSCE has sent 635 observers to the Ukrainian election, while in total there were several thousand monitors. Some analysts say great interest of the international community in this election is primarily due to the country's being in the focus of attention in Europe after Victor Yanukovich's coming to power in 2010 and his new policy course leaning toward authoritarianism. Some experts and international organizations, in particular, the European Union, have expressed their concern over the events ongoing in Ukraine, which was recently named a "beacon of democracy" in the former Soviet Union.

Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky said prior to the elections that if the vote is held on a high level, this would give a new impetus to the development of Kyiv's relations with the EU.

"We hope that the results of the vote, whatever they may be, will be recognized, and therefore, it will give us the opportunity to engage in European projects with renewed vigor. We really look forward to the signing of the Association Agreement," Khoroshkovsky said.

Sergei Mikheyev, general director of Russia's Political Situation Center, told Materik.ru portal that the EU and the Americans, of course, will criticize the election, perhaps, will doubt its democratic conduct and will find reasons to put pressure on Yanukovich. But a complete non-recognition of the election results is out of the question, because it would not suit the West, as this move would push Yanukovich toward Russia.

According to the central election body, voter turnout was around 58 percent. Voters elected 450 MPs for a five-year term, with half of them elected through the proportional system and the other half through the majority of votes system.

In single-member districts the winner is a candidate who gains the majority of votes, and in the case of identical results a run-off vote is held.