Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's party is in the lead with over 22 percent of votes in the country's Sunday parliamentary elections, exit polls say. Poroshenko's bloc is closely followed by two other pro-Europe parties, reports GHN based on RT.
With 20.15 per cent of the ballot lists in the election counted, the People's Front of PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk is gaining momentum with 21.66 of the vote, while the Petro Poroshenko Bloc is trailing slightly behind with 21.65 percent of the vote, with only 134 votes separating them, Ukraine's CEC has announced.
The CEC also announced that only four other parties have passed the 5 percent threshold so far."Samopomosh" party of Lvov's mayor Anrey Sadoviy has 10.35 percent. "Opposition Bloc" has 9.91 percent, "Radical party of Oleg Lyashko" has 7.71 percent, while Yulia Tymoshenko's party "Batkivshchina" has 5.96 percent.
A total of seven political parties are expected to be represented in Ukraine's Parliament - Verkhovna Rada. Half of the seats in the 450 member parliament will be filled by the leading blocs, while the other half will be filled by candidates running in single-member constituencies.
However, according to international exit polls, the Poroshenko Bloc took a winning margin with 23 percent and is closely followed by the People's Front party which got over 21 percent.
"We can say today that a third of voters supports the president's course for carrying out reforms for entering the European Union," said Yuriy Lutsenko, the leader of the Poroshenko Bloc.
After the exit polls were announced, Poroshenko thanked voters for their support and said that coalition talks will start on Monday.
In third place with projected 14 percent was the newly-formed Self-Help party led by Andrey Sadovuy, the mayor of the major western Ukrainian city of Lvov. Next was the Opposition Bloc headed by former deputy prime minister Yury Boyko with over 7 percent, according to the polls.