Ukraine holds a snap parliamentary election on Sunday, ordered by President Petro Poroshenko with the aim of clearing out loyalists of ousted Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich and producing an assembly with a pro-Europe majority.
The election is also aimed at securing further legitimacy for Kiev's new pro-Western direction after "Euromaidan" protests last winter, broadly supported by the West but denounced by Russia as a coup after Yanukovich's fall.
Opinion polls suggest the new assembly will be dominated by pro-Europe parties, including Poroshenko's bloc. Yanukovich's Regions Party has been erased as a political force and is not running. Its allies, the Communists, might not win any representation for the first time since independence in 1991.
The main parties competing are:
- The Poroshenko bloc comprising the Solidarity party of the president and Udar led by Vitaly Klitschko.
- Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) led by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
- Radical Party headed by Oleh Lyashko.
- People's Front led by Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk.
- Selfhelp headed by Andriy Sadovy, mayor of Lviv
- Civic Position of former defence minister Anatoly Hrytsenko
- Strong Ukraine of former first deputy prime minister Serhiy Tigipko
- Communist party of Petro Simonenko
Half of the 450-seat chamber is elected by a proportional system of party lists. A party must achieve at least 5% of votes to enter parliament. The other half of parliament will be elected in single-mandate election districts on a first-past-the-post basis. These ought to number 225 seats, as with the party lists seats, but they have been reduced to 198 because of the loss of Crimea, annexed by Russia, and separatists who are preventing voting taking place in parts of the east. This means that only 423 deputies are likely to be elected, according to the Central Election Commission. The new parliament will have one month to create a majority which must form a new government.
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