Ukrainian Parliamentary elections

[ag]

First region to get 100% precincts to report is the western Volyn':

Timoshenko 43.82% (264,118 voters)
Our Ukraine (Yushchenko) 20.67% (124,593)
Kostenko and Plusch Bloc (orange splinter) 6.27% (37,818)
Party of Regions (Yanukovich) 4.48% (27,028)
Sociallist Party 4.01% (24,215)
Litvin's Bloc 3.29% (19,864)
Communist Party 2.22% (13,438)
Pora-PRP (orange splinter) 2.14% (12,898)
Against all 1.48%

everybody else less than 1.2%

Ukraine is still sharply split (as if there were any questions about that).

[ag]

Kiev Mayor
At 8:45 PM local time, w/66.31% reporting

Leondi Chernovetsky (independent banker+MP) 31.78%
Vitaly Klichko (boxer, Pora-PRP) 23.74%
Oleksandr Omel'chenko (incumbent) 21.32%

Kiev City Council, 9:09PM, 64.06% reporting

Timoshenko's Bloc 24.76%
Chernovetsky's Bloc 12.73%
Our Ukraine (Yushchenko's supporters) 8.92%
Pora-PRO/Klichko's Bloc 8.62%
Party of Regions (Yanukovich's supporters) 5.54%
Citizens' Active of Kiev 4.06%
Sociallist Party 3.94%
Litvin's Bloc 3.63%

Supreme Council of the Crimean Autnomous Republic
with 68.22% reporting

Bloc "For Yanukovich" 34.29%
People's Movement of Ukraine "Rukh" (in Crimea it now is the vehicle of the the politicians from the Crimean Tatar Minority) 7.85%
Kunitsin's Bloc 7.76%
Party "Union" (presumably, the "Union" is Soviet) 7.1%
Timoshenko's Bloc 7.01%
Communist Party 5.9%
Vitrenko's Bloc 3.59%
Litvin's Bloc 2.89%
"Ne Tak!" 2.51%
Our Ukraine 1.45%
Sociallist Party 1.15%

In Chernihiv Mayoral race a Sociallist Party candidate seems to be leading.
 

[Middle-aged Europe]

Kiev Mayor
At 8:45 PM local time, w/66.31% reporting

Leondi Chernovetsky (independent banker+MP) 31.78%
Vitaly Klichko (boxer, Pora-PRP) 23.74%
Oleksandr Omel'chenko (incumbent) 21.32%

I guess Vitali will have to continue making Milchschnitte ads.

(He and his brother are appearing on German TV in a series of commercials for a small sandwich-like milk confectionary called "Milchschnitte").

[Kevinstat]

At 6:37 PM on Wednesday, 3/29 w/ 93.27% reporting

Party of Regions (Yanukovich) 31.27% 181 seats
Timoshenko's Bloc 22.49% 130 seats
Our Ukraine (Yuschenko) 14.48% 84 seats
Sociallists 5.87% 34 seats
Communists 3.62% 21 seats
Vitrenko's Bloc 2.75%
Litvin's Bloc 2.45%
Kostenko and Plusch Bloc (orange splinter) 1.97%
Viche 1.66%
Pora-PRP (orange splinter) 1.49%
"Rennaissance" 0.98% (they're below 1% for the first time since very early in the count)
Opposition bloc "Ne Tak!" 0.97%

Against All 1.75%

[ag]

The final results are approaching:

At 9:52 local time with 99.00% reporting the results are:


Party of Regions (Yanukovich) 32.00%% 186 seats
Timoshenko's Bloc 22.29%% 129 seats
Our Ukraine (Yuschenko) 14.02% 81 seats
Sociallists 5.71% 33 seats
Communists 3.66% 21 seats
Vitrenko's Bloc 2.89%
Litvin's Bloc 2.44%
Kostenko and Plusch Bloc (orange splinter) 1.89%
Viche 1.73%
Pora-PRP (orange splinter) 1.47%
"Rennaissance" 1.00%
Opposition bloc "Ne Tak!" 0.97

Against all 1.77%

A projected orange (Timoshenko-Yushchenko-Sociallists) majority of 243 seats out of 450

If Vitrenko gets in with (barely) 3%, the seat allocation would be
Party of Regions 178 seats
Timoshenko's Bloc 124 seats
Our Ukraine 78 seats
Sociallists 32 seats
Communists 21 seats
Vitrenko 17 seats

Still an "orange" majority, but, in this case, a slim one of 234 seats.

[ag]

A funny quirk: it seems that in the elections for Donets'k regional council Timoshenko's Bloc is ahead of Yanukovich's, even though  in the national election Timoshenko didn't even get 2.5% there, against 73% for you Yanukovich. A plausible explanation suggested by the Yanukovich's representatives - which doesn't say a lot of good things about his voters' literacy - is that, while on the national ballot Yanukovich's Party of Regions had number 18, on the local ballot this number was given to Timoshenko's Bloc (these things were randomly determined in each case). Thus, seems like a lot of people marked number 18 on both ballots, not realizing that this meant voting for two very different parties. A lot, in this case, means a huge chunk of the electorate - talk about pregnat chads!

[ag]

Even though Odessa on the national level favors the Party of Regions, it seems a popular incumbent changes things a lot on the local level. The incumbent mayor Eduard Hurvits, who is allied at the local level to Our Ukraine, has been overwhelmingly reelected - w/100% of the vote counted he got 224,703, whereas the runner-up Serhiy Bovbalan got 92,662 votes.

In the city council election the largest vote getters are (w/ 97% reporting):

Party of Regions 81,707
Eduard Hurvits Bloc/ Our Odessa (including the local Our Ukraine organization) 68,027
Vitrenko's Bloc 33,650
Timoshenko's Bloc 25,330

Overall, a very respectable showing for the orange parties in the alien territory - but only locally.

[minionofmidas]

A funny quirk: it seems that in the elections for Donets'k regional council Timoshenko's Bloc is ahead of Yanukovich's, even though  in the national election Timoshenko didn't even get 2.5% there, against 73% for you Yanukovich. A plausible explanation suggested by the Yanukovich's representatives - which doesn't say a lot of good things about his voters' literacy - is that, while on the national ballot Yanukovich's Party of Regions had number 18, on the local ballot this number was given to Timoshenko's Bloc (these things were randomly determined in each case). Thus, seems like a lot of people marked number 18 on both ballots, not realizing that this meant voting for two very different parties. A lot, in this case, means a huge chunk of the electorate - talk about pregnat chads!

ROFLMAO.

They could have maybe, just maybe, thought about pointing this out to voters beforehand, though, shouldn't they...

[ag]

A funny quirk: it seems that in the elections for Donets'k regional council Timoshenko's Bloc is ahead of Yanukovich's, even though  in the national election Timoshenko didn't even get 2.5% there, against 73% for you Yanukovich. A plausible explanation suggested by the Yanukovich's representatives - which doesn't say a lot of good things about his voters' literacy - is that, while on the national ballot Yanukovich's Party of Regions had number 18, on the local ballot this number was given to Timoshenko's Bloc (these things were randomly determined in each case). Thus, seems like a lot of people marked number 18 on both ballots, not realizing that this meant voting for two very different parties. A lot, in this case, means a huge chunk of the electorate - talk about pregnat chads!

ROFLMAO.

They could have maybe, just maybe, thought about pointing this out to voters beforehand, though, shouldn't they...

Who'd think? One argument could be made that the ballots in Russian should have been available. On the second thought, the difference between the spelling of party names in Russian and Ukrainian is literally in a couple of letters, at most, so, being a native speaker of Russian who never spent more than a month in a row in Ukraine in my life, I can't imagine being confused by this.

[ag]

Nearly final

At 2:25 AM with 99.38% reporting

Party of Regions (Yanukovich) 32.06%% 186 seats
Timoshenko's Bloc 22.27%% 129 seats
Our Ukraine (Yuschenko) 13.99% 81 seats
Sociallists 5.70% 33 seats
Communists 3.66% 21 seats
Vitrenko's Bloc 2.91%
Litvin's Bloc 2.43%
Kostenko and Plusch Bloc (orange splinter) 1.88%
Viche 1.74%
Pora-PRP (orange splinter) 1.47%
"Rennaissance" 1.00%
Opposition bloc "Ne Tak!" 0.96%

Against All 1.77%

[ag]

Since most of the districts have reported 100%, time to give some local samples. I will start with areas with which I have a familiar connection. I will only report those who got at least 3% in the district.

District 205, Cherkasy Region, town of Uman' - a very holy place for some Hassidim, by the way (Rebe Nachman, he founder of the Bratslaver Hassidim lived there and his grave is a major pilgrimage site):

Timoshenko's Bloc 40.53%
Sociallist Party 16.10%
Party of Regions 10.70%
Our Ukraine 9.08%
Communist Party 4.71%

Districts 132 and 133, the city of Odessa, Odessa Region - a glorious place, by the way.

District 132
Party of Regions 42.41%
Timoshenko's Bloc 14.11%
Our Ukraine 7.27%
Vitrenko's Bloc 6.52%
Sociallist Party 5.00%

District 133 (only 98.24% reporting so far)
Party of Regions 45.87%
Timoshenko's Bloc 11.98%
Vitrenko's Bloc 7.07%
Our Ukraine 6.48%
Sociallist Party 4.53%

Looking at these results it's a wonder that Our Ukraine-linked Mayor Hurvits got re-elected w/ nearly 2/3 of the vote. Of course, in Odessa the trademark is Hurvits.

There are 4 districts in the City of Kharkiv  (173-176).

District 173 (99.42% reporting)
Party of Regions 45.84%
Timoshenko's Bloc 15.35%
Our Ukraine 8.42%
Vitrenko's Bloc 5.47%
Viche 4.97%
Communist Party 3.88%

District 174
Party of Regions 51.02%
Timoshenko's Bloc 14.16%
Our Ukraine 6.36%
Vitrenko's Bloc 5.33%
Communist Party 4.00%
Viche 3.93%

District 175 (99.45% reporting)
Party of Regions 52.43%
Timoshenko's Bloc 13.80%
Our Ukraine 5.77%
Vitrenko's Bloc 5.21%
Communist Party 3.92%
Viche 3.76%

District 176
Party of Regions 48.41%
Timoshenko's Bloc 15.58%
Our Ukraine 6.76%
Vitrenko's Bloc 5.22%
Viche 3.82%
Communist Party 3.51%

[ag]

Some other local results. Here I will report all results up to the worst party that nationally will be in parliament + Vitrenko's Bloc

The two extremes:

District 46 (one of 2 districts in the City of Makiivka, Donets'k Region). Highest vote share for the Party of Regions

1. Party of Regions 83.65%
2. Vitrenko's Bloc 6.14%
3. Communist Party 1.55%
4."Ne Tak" 1.47%
5. Timoshenko's Bloc 1.18%
6. Our Ukraine 0.79%
7. Viche 0.60%
8. "State - Labor Union" 0.36%
9. Sociallist Party 0.30%

District 121 (Town of Stari Sambir, Lviv Region)
Lowest vote share for the Party of Regions

1. Our Ukraine 40.10%
2.Timoshenko's Bloc 37.32%
3. Bloc of Boris Oliynik and Mikhail Sirota 3.76%
4. Bloc of Kostenko and Plusch 2.87%
5. Pora-PRP 2.65%
6. Sociallist Party 1.86%
7. Renaissance 1.50%
8. Liberty 1.09%
9. "Party of Ecological Order ECO+25%" 0.97%
10. Party of Putin's Policy 0.68%
11. Litvin's Bloc 0.61%
12. Party of Regions 0.55%
13. NDP 0.48%
14. Yuri Karmazin's Bloc 0.37%
15. "Green Planet" 0.30%
16. Viche 0.27%
17. Rural Party 0.19%
18. New Force 0.19%
19. "Ne Tak" 0.16%
20. Lazarenko's Bloc 0.12%
21. Communist Party 0.12% (a whole of 62 votes!)
22. The People's Movement for Unity (Rukh - as I mentioned before, this is now a shell party, though it was the main independence movement in years past; its voters must have been asleep for the last 15 years; I believe they didn't even run a national slate - just registered to have observers at polling places) 0.10%
23. Power to the People! 0.08%
24. People's Trust 0.08%
25. Euhen Marchuk's Bloc 0.07%
26. Party of Patriotic Forces 0.07%
27. Green Party 0.07%
28. Vitrenko's Bloc 0.05% (proud 28 votes - who are those people?)

[ag]

I did a little summary on the Party of Regions performance by electoral district (there are 225 territorial districts + 1 foreign district). It was rapid - forgive any errors. Also, there are a few districts that hasn't reported everything (1 district in Mykolaiv still has less then 80% reporting), so it is provisional

1. There are 4 districts where it got 80 or more % of the vote (3 in Donet'sk and 1 in Luhansk)

2. 70-80% 15 districts (9 in Donets'k and 6 in Luhansk)

3. 60-70% 11 districts (1 in Crimea + 1 in the City of Sebastopol, 3 in Donets'k, 2 in Zaporizh'zhe, 3 in Luhansk, 1 i Khar'kiv)

4. 50-60% 26 districts (7 in Crimea, 1 in Dnipropetrovs'k, 2 in Donets'k, 3 in Zaporizh'zhe, 2 in Mykolaiv, 4 in Odessa, 6 in Khar'kiv and 1 in Kherson)

5. 40-50% (in all of this they are the largest vote-getter): 24 districts (7 in Dnipropetrovs'k, 3 in Zaporizh'zhe, 4 in Mykolaiv, 5 in Odessa, 4 in Khar'kiv, 1 in Kherson)

6. 30-40% (in every one of these they are the largest vote-getter, though in some the sum-total of the "orange" vote might be higher): 7 districts (1 in Dnipropetrovs'k, 1 in Zhytomir, 1 in Kirovohrad, 1 in Odessa, 1 in Poltava, 2 in Kherson)

7. 20-30% and the first place in the number of votes, though the sum total of the orange vote is typically higher: 4 districts (1 in Zhytomir, 1 in Zakarpat'e, 1 in Sumy, 1 in Kherson)

8. 20-30% and some other slate getting more votes: 8 districts 1 in Zhytomir, 1 in Kirovohrad, 2 in Poltava, 1 in Chernihiv, 2 in Chernivtsi and the Foreign district

9. 10-20% (never in the lead): 51 district! (2 in Vinnitsa, 6 in Zhytomir, 4 in Zakarpat'e, 3 in Kiev Region and 7 in Kiev City, 5 in Kirovohrad, 6 in Poltava, 1 in Rivno, 3 in Sumy, 4 in Khmel'nitski, 3 in Cherkasy, 2 in Chernihiv, 3 in Chernivtsi)

10. 3-10%: 48 districts! (9 in Vinnitsa, 5 in Volyn', 1 in Zhytomir, 1 in Ivano-Frankivs'k, 6 in Kiev Region, 3 i Lviv, 6 in Rivno, 2 in Sumy, 1 in Ternopil', 5 in Khmel'nitsky, 5 in Cherkasy, 1 in Chernihiv, 3 in Chernivtsi)

11. 1-3%: 17 districts (2 in Volyn', 3 in Ivano-Frankivs'k, 6 in Lviv, 1 in Sumy, 1 in Ternopil')

12. Less then 1%: 9 districts (3 in Ivano-Frankivs'k, 4 in L'viv, 2 in Ternopil').

The highest proportion of the vote is 83.65% in District 46 in Makiivka, Donets'k Region
The lowest proportion of the vote is 0.55% in the town of Stari Sambir, Lviv Region

Quite a spread!

[ag]

Finally, at 7:43PM local time, 100% reporting!


1. Party of Regions (Yanukovich) 8,144,485 votes, 32.12%%, 186 seats
2. Timoshenko's Bloc 5,648,345 votes 22.27%  129 seats
3. Our Ukraine (Yuschenko) 3,536,459 votes, 13.94%, 81 seats
4. Sociallists 1,439,624 votes, 5.67%,  33 seats
5. Communists 928,501 votes, 3.66%, 21 seats
6. Vitrenko's Bloc 743,125 votes 2.93%, no seats
7. Litvin's Bloc 618,060 votes, 2.43%, no seats
8. Kostenko and Plusch Bloc (orange splinter) 475,636 votes, 1.87% no seats
9. Viche 443,959 votes, 1.74%, no seats
10. Pora-PRP (orange splinter) 372,931 votes, 1.47%, no seats
11. Opposition bloc "Ne Tak!" 256,836 votes, 1.01%, no seats
12. "Rennaissance" 244,862 votes, 0.96%, no seats
13. Yuri Karmazin's Bloc 165,820 votes, 0.65%, no seats
14. The Green Party 137,845 votes, 0.54%, no seats
15. NDP 126,741 votes, 0.49%, no seats
16. Party of Ecological Order "ECO+25%" 120,107 votes, 0.47% no seats

None of the other parties got even 100,000 votes, though it goes all the way down to

45. "Forward Ukraine!" 6,970 votes, 0.02% no seats!

Against all 1.77%

[minionofmidas]

A funny quirk: it seems that in the elections for Donets'k regional council Timoshenko's Bloc is ahead of Yanukovich's, even though  in the national election Timoshenko didn't even get 2.5% there, against 73% for you Yanukovich. A plausible explanation suggested by the Yanukovich's representatives - which doesn't say a lot of good things about his voters' literacy - is that, while on the national ballot Yanukovich's Party of Regions had number 18, on the local ballot this number was given to Timoshenko's Bloc (these things were randomly determined in each case). Thus, seems like a lot of people marked number 18 on both ballots, not realizing that this meant voting for two very different parties. A lot, in this case, means a huge chunk of the electorate - talk about pregnat chads!

ROFLMAO.

They could have maybe, just maybe, thought about pointing this out to voters beforehand, though, shouldn't they...

Who'd think? One argument could be made that the ballots in Russian should have been available. On the second thought, the difference between the spelling of party names in Russian and Ukrainian is literally in a couple of letters, at most, so, being a native speaker of Russian who never spent more than a month in a row in Ukraine in my life, I can't imagine being confused by this.

Well it could be that Party of Regions told everyone "vote slate no 18!" not thinking of the regional election.

[ag]

After months and months of difficult negotiations about forming an "orange" coalition, the Sociallists suddently defected! The Yanukovich+Sociallists+Communists coalition (240 out of 450) seats has proposed Yanukovich for PM. In exchange, the Sociallist leader Moroz has just been elected speaker.

But, there is a quirk: by law, to avoid disolution, Rada has to propose a majority coalittion before 30 days elapse from its first meeting (which itself was delayed till the last possible moment, to avoid hitting this deadline). 1 day before the deadline, the "orange" coalition deal was signed, preventing Rada disolution. This coalition has now colapsed before actually being constituted, so, it seems the president can order Rada's disolution and new election. Yuschenko is now thinking what to do.

[ag]

As someone who would've voted for the Socialists in this election, I would now vote for Timoshenko in any new elections, since there's no way Yanukovich should be allowed near power.

Generally speaking, if the Rada is disolved the conventional opinion is the Sociallists are finished - their electorate will split, most of it reverting orange, the rest voting Yanukovich or Communists. What Moroz counts on is that Yuschenko won't dare to disolve right now (given how traumatic recent elections were). In that case, for now Moroz remains the Speaker, and he can always pull the plug on the  government to "rehabilitate" himself before the next election. One thing certain, at this point he is the king-maker.

[ag]

Ukraine is still without a government, but should soon get one. Yesterday Yushchenko agreed to formally present Yanukovich as the PM candidate to the Parliament. In exchange, Yanukovich signed the "Universal of National Agreement", that restates Ukraine's strategic interest in joining EU and promises a referendum on joining NATO.  The "Universal" is to serve as some sort of a coalition agreement.

The new government is likely to be a "grand coalition". Yanukovich will be the PM in a three-partite blue-orange-orangish coalition of his own Party of Regions, Yushchenko's "Our Ukraine" and the Sociallists. Timoshenko's Bloc is going into the hardcore opposition, while the Communists are still on the fence, though inclined towards opposition.