The ruling Party of Regions, headed by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, is leading in the parliamentary elections after 50 percent of ballots were counted, the country’s Central Election Committee said on Monday.
Yanukovych’s party has garnered 35 percent of the vote and is followed by jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party with almost 21.98 percent of the vote.
The Ukrainian Communist Party comes in the third place with 14.89 percent. Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR), led by the world-famous boxer Vitaly Klitschko, has at the moment over 12 percent of the vote, while 8.34 percent of the voters cast their ballots in favor of Svoboda nationalist party.
The rest of the political parties participating in the election did not pass the five-percent threshold necessary to gain seats in the country’s legislative body, the Supreme Rada.
Over 5,000 candidates were contesting for 450 seats in the Supreme Rada, with half of the deputies to be elected on party-list vote and the other half in single-mandate constituencies.
Polls closed at 8.00 p.m. [18:00 GMT] on Sunday. According to the Central Election Committee, voters’ turnout stood at nearly 58 percent.
