Pro-European parties have a clear majority in the new Ukrainian parliament, but populists and members of the old guard are also on hand. Nonetheless, a new political moment has emerged, says DW's Bernd Johann, reports GHN based on DW.
Ukrainians have voted, and it was arguably the most important election since the country gained independence. For the first time, parliament will house a wide-ranging pro-Western majority that could reform the country and bring it closer to Europe. Also for the first time, a number of young social activists will enter the Verkhovna Rada, where they want to change the country by enhancing freedom and democracy. They waged their campaigns on secure party lists in order to make their entry into parliament.
Last winter, they were also the ones who took to the streets along with hundreds of thousands of fellow protesters to depose the corrupt and authoritarian Yanukovych regime. Now these activists are taking on political responsibility in parliament. They will have to show whether they can beat back the influence of the old political elites and of the oligarchs - rich business leaders who primarily pursue their own interests by way of politics.

Maidan activists are the winners of this election, just like the parties that supported the political breakthrough at the time - above all, President Petro Poroshenko's voting bloc and the People's Front party created by interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Poroshenko's only recently established party list became an immediate frontrunner - even if it didn't fare quite as well as polling had suggested. Yatsenyuk's People's Front followed close behind it. Together, the two parties will have a majority in the new parliament and can modernize the country, taking cues from Europe.
Additional parties could also be possible coalition partners. Advancing the necessary and, in part, painful economic and social reforms will require a broad coalition. The Samopomich (Self-help) party, which will enter the country's parliament for the first time and is particularly strong in western Ukraine, and Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland party could help lend additional support in reaching toward Europe.