Pro-West forces appear on track for Ukraine election win

Oct 2, 2007, 12:14 GMT

Kiev - A coalition of two pro-Western political parties was poised on Tuesday to take control of Ukraine's parliament by a narrow but clear margin.

With 95.64 per cent of votes from Sunday's elections counted by midday Tuesday, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich's Regions Ukraine party, a pro-big business group based in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country, had received 34.16 per cent of the votes, according to data compiled by Ukraine's Central Election Commission.

The anti-corruption Block of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) was in second, having received 30.82 per cent of votes. The third-place party, the pro-Europe Our Ukraine National Self Defence (OUNSD), had pulled in 14.29 per cent of the votes.

Leaders of BYuT and OUNSD have announced they are ready to form a coalition, the moment the official vote count is complete.

If the ratio of votes obtained by the top three parties remains unchanged once final results are announced, the 'Pro-Democracy' coalition - as its organizers name it - would control 229 seats in Ukraine's 450-seat parliament.

The Marxist Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU) was on track to enter parliament as well, having gained 5.36 per cent of the popular vote, according to midday Central Election Commission statistics.

A party led by former parliament speaker Volodymyr Litvin also appeared likely to participate in the legislature, having obtained 3.97 per cent support.

Together, Regions, the Communists and the Litvin party obtained enough support to name 49.1 per cent of the seats in the next parliament, or 221 MPs of in the 450-member house, based on the near-complete vote count.

By Ukrainian law, a party receiving less than 3 per cent of the popular vote may not serve in parliament. The Socialist Party, a potential Regions ally, appeared to have run afoul of the '3 per cent barrier,' having obtained 2.94 per cent of the votes.

Political observers in Ukraine by midday were giving the Socialists little chance of improving their position once the last 5 per cent of the ballots are counted.

The four parties making it into the legislature, likewise, were expected to retain their relative positions once the final results of the election were announced, they said.

The seeming success of the 'Pro-Democracy' coalition in taking unchallenged control of parliament will almost certainly be delayed by widely-expected law suits filed by losers challenging the election results.

A possible miscount, or even falsification of even a small portion of the election returns, was a complicating factor in predicting which parties had enough support to form a coalition, as marginal differences in votes cast, could have a decisive effect on which parties could assemble a parliamentary majority.

If past experience is a guide, and even if the proposed BYuT-OUNSD coalition takes power, the alliance could be far from a smoothly-run and peaceful relationship.

Disputes over which politician would obtain which cabinet position, and recriminations over which potential coalition member was in fact corrupt, forced the failure of coalition talks by the same parties, after Ukraine's March 2006 parliamentary vote.

Tymoshenko nonetheless in post-election press conferences asserted her party and OUNSD already had agreed on guiding principles for a coalition which would prevent disputes of the past.

'We are in agreement in our basic principles, and that will allow us to work together harmoniously,' she said. 'There are no differences between us.'

Tymoshenko's election campaign called for a nationwide anti-corruption campaign starting with an overhaul of the judiciary, closer Ukrainian relations with Europe, and the government's top job after the President - the Prime Minister's office - for herself.

International election observers gave the conduct of the vote a positive review. Turnout exceeded the 58-per-cent participation rate of last year's election, with around 62.5 per cent of registered voters having cast ballots this time around.