Not only did radical forces fair relatively poorly, but Ukraine’s Communist Party also failed to enter parliament for the first time in what many hailed as a symbolic success.It was just the sort of message President Petro Poroshenko was hoping to send as he sought to close the final chapter of his country’s tumultuous revolution.Oleksiy Haran, a professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, calls it “certainly a step forward.”“In a time of crisis, [voters] trusted who was already in power,” he says. “That rarely happens.”By Monday evening, after more than 60 percent of the votes were counted, Poroshenko’s eponymous political bloc appeared in a dead heat with its closest ally, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front, at about 21 percent.
via Expectations high in Ukraine after pro-Western parties sweep elections | GlobalPost.
