Eurasia Press & News
Ukraine’s pro-Western and moderately nationalist parties were on course today to score a crushing election win that boosted President Petro Poroshenko’s bid to merge his ex-Soviet country with Europe and end a pro-Russian revolt.
A partial vote count and exit polls showed overwhelming support for Poroshenko’s drive to break his nation of 45 million out of Russia’s orbit despite the painful economic measures the Kremlin has levied on its western neighbour in reprisal.
Results with 30 per cent of the precincts reporting had Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front leading with 21.7 percent of the vote. The president’s Petro Poroshenko Bloc was a a hair behind with 21.6 per cent.Many in Kiev and the West blame the six-month uprising that has killed 3,700 on an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to destabilise Ukraine’s new government and create a “frozen conflict” in its vital industrial east.
Parties with links to Moscow or the old Viktor Yanukovych regime that was ousted after his abrupt rejection in February of a landmark EU pact were routed at the ballot boxes yesterday.
