Exit polls: Pro-democracy and pro-EU agenda wins

Yesterday's Parliamentary election late night exit poll results (see table below) revealed a win for the pro-democracy, pro-EU and pro-reforms majority. The fact that all exit poll results are quite similar signifies that no manipulation (a customary element of the past) has occurred. Final result should mirror the exit poll through which 53% of the votes have been counted so far. President Poroshenko's bloc received 23.0% of the votes, which is below both the target and most recent opinion poll. PM Yatsenyuk's party, known as The People's Front, received a superb 22.1% share, while a week ago it ranked third in the polls with a share below 10%. It most likely managed to attract voters from the undecided camp which accounted for one-third of the voters. Another big surprise of the elections is strong showing by the Self-Assistence party, which received 12% of the votes. Its leader, Andriy Sadoviy, the mayor of Lviv and a rising star of Ukraine politics, is not coming to parliament as he needs at least a 17% share to achieve this. It appears he intentionally did not want to win this election in order to make way for his party's breed of young professionals to enter the parliament. Instead, with higher aims, he appears to be preparing to run for president in the next election. Oleh Lyashko's Radical Party received just a 6% share, well below expectations as polls had placed this party second in this election. The former Party of Regions and openly pro-Kremlin group, now called the Opposition Bloc, received 8% of the votes, considered a strong showing for these voters. Svoboda and Tymoshenko's Batkivschyna party showed poor results of 6% and 5%, respectively. The majority will be formed by Poroshenko's bloc, the People's Front, Self-Assistance, and Svoboda. They are likely to command a total of 300 MPs. Tymoshenko and Lyashko, while both have elements of the pro-EU mindset, are considered to be populists that are pro-Maidan activists who will occasionally join the majority to pass laws that require broader support. Arseniy Yatsenyuk is likely to retain the post of prime minister. Although the government will be reshuffled to reflect the changed political structure of the parliament, the Self-Assistance party said yesterday that it would take part in the ruling majority and would call to form a government based more on merit than on party affiliation and quotas. Such an announcement could signify the formation of a new administration that is more reform-focused than the previous one.

Источник: ICU