(Monkey Cage) The 2014 snap elections to the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) that took place on Oct. 26, 2014 will likely go down in history as a watershed election in Ukraine’s post-Soviet history. For the first time, instead of a closely divided legislature with pro-Russian and pro-European parties nearly equally matched, the October 2014 election produced a parliament where pro-European parties will hold a dominant majority. With 97.83 percent of the votes counted, six parties cleared the 5 percent threshold: People’s Front (22.17 percent), Petro Poroshenko’s Block (21.82 percent), Samopomich (11.01 percent), Opposition Block (9.35 percent), Radical Party of Oleh Liashko (7.44 percent), and Batkivshchyna (5.68 percent). Of the six, only the Opposition Block, composed primarily of member of the rump Party of Regions of the former president Victor Yanukovych, can be termed as pro-Russian. Two other pro-Russian parties that had a chance to enter the parliament – the Communist Party of Ukraine and Strong Ukraine headed by Serhiy Tyhypko, a former banker and one-time deputy chairman of the Party of Regions – did not clear the threshold securing, 3.09 percent and 3.86 percent, respectively. […]
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Also see:
An Overview of the Make-up of the New Ukrainian Parliament by Volodymyr Dubovyk
Ukraine’s Election: Hope and Concern by Henry E. Hale
