Pro-Europe parties secure big win in Ukraine — exit poll

KIEV — Pro-Europe parties led by a group backing President Petro Poroshenko swept a parliamentary election in Ukraine on Sunday, an exit poll showed, giving him a mandate to end a separatist conflict and pursue democratic reforms.

The survey, issued after voting stations closed in the ex- Soviet republic, gave Poroshenko's bloc 23 per cent of the votes cast for the 29 competing parties, ahead of the Party of his ally, Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, on 21.3 per cent.

A third pro-Europe Party was in third place but a surprise was the strong performance of a group representing allies of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych. The Opposition Bloc, led by former Fuel Minister Yuri Boiko, secured 7.6 per cent — enough to put his Party into parliament.

The exit polls confirmed expectations of a pro-Western assembly emerging from the first parliamentary election since Yanukovych's overthrow in February.

"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.

The polls offered a reading only of Party voting for 225 of the 450 seats in parliament and results from voting to single constituency seats will be known only in a few days time.

With the Party of the pro-Europe Party, Selfhelp, in third place on 13.2 per cent, Poroshenko should easily be able to forge a coalition to press on with plans to end the conflict in the east and move Ukraine towards the European mainstream.

Other parties which seemed likely to enter parliament on the basis of the exit poll included the populist Radical Party and the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) Party.

The Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko performed worse than many had expected though with 5.6 per cent of the vote on Party lists she also should enter parliament.

Though the result for the Opposition Bloc, which has criticised Poroshenko's policies in the east, surprised many, other parties allied with the disgraced Yanukovych fared poorly, including the communists. The influence of pro-Russian groups looks set to be greatly diminished.

This reality could fuel fresh tension in the future with Russia which condemned Yanukovych's ousting as a "fascist" coup and went on to annex Crimea in March and back anti-Kiev rebellions by separatists in the east.

More than 3,700 people have been killed in the conflict which Poroshenko, after big battlefield losses by government forces, has now vowed to solve only by political negotiations.

Voting did not take place on Sunday in areas held by the rebels nor in Crimea.