Ukrainians took to the polls on Sunday, casting ballots in a parliamentary election that many are calling a milestone — a step from the country’s muddled political past into a West-oriented future. At the same time, however, words of caution are plenty, with observers both within and outside of Ukraine anxiously looking at the protracted conflict in the east, the government’s empty coffers and the corruption-prone political and legal systems in urgent need of reform.
As of Tuesday night, with more than 95 percent of ballots counted, the results show pro-European parties sweeping the vote, with 22.22 percent going to the People’s Front of the incumbent prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, and 21.82 percent of the vote going to the party led by the country’s president, Petro Poroshenko. Samopomich (“Self-Help”), a pro-reform party led by the mayor of the Western city of Lviv, somewhat unexpectedly took third place.
President Barack Obama congratulated the Ukrainian people on a “successful” election.
“It was arguably the most important election since the country gained independence,” says Bernd Johann at Deutsche Welle.
With an estimated 52 percent turnout, Simon Shuster at Time writes that “an unprecedented national consensus has emerged in support of a lasting break with Moscow and a turn toward European integration.”
An editorial from The Guardian emphasizes that the election will change Ukraine’s political scene, with a severely curtailed influence of pro-Russian parties. “The influence of the oligarchs, whose capture of economic and political power was at the root of the corruption that bedeviled Ukraine after independence, has been diminished,” the editorial states. It is now possible, the editorial says, that Ukraine “can decisively repudiate both the Communist past and the murky era that followed, and transform itself into a healthy democracy.”
In a way, those who had participated in the election already voted out the country’s “Communist past.” For the first time since Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, the Communist Party will be absent from the new Parliament. “Their defeat, though largely symbolic, epitomized the transformation of Ukraine that began with this year’s revolution and, in many respects, ended with the ballot on Sunday,” Mr. Shuster writes.
Fringe parties, such as the much-maligned nationalist Right Sector or the populist Radical Party, did not make the cut or severely underperformed. With a moderate Parliament, the country should set to implement sweeping reforms, observers say.
“The president now has his new Rada. It is time to move. Urgent reforms are needed in the economic and energy sectors if Ukraine is to avoid becoming — some would say remaining — an economic basket case,” writes Steven Pifer at The Brookings Institution.
The reforms won’t come without a price.
“A sharp reduction in the size of the government bureaucracy is bound to face fierce resistance when the economy is in crisis and winter is setting in, and a serious anti-corruption campaign would clip many politically active and powerful oligarchs,” states an editorial from The New York Times.
And the growing pains will affect everyone. “Reforms will inevitably bring more suffering to a population already traumatised by war,” says The Economist. “But reforms are also essential for securing the foreign money that Ukraine needs to survive. Much will depend on the West.”
The Economist urges haste: “With winter approaching, the country’s gas shortage is beginning to hit home.”
The New York Times editorial adds that the threat of Russia cutting off Ukraine’s gas is immediate: “What is certain is that Russia will no longer subsidize Ukraine with low energy prices, as it did in the past.” For now, the editorial says, “Russia is not likely to do more damage,” as it has signaled it would recognize the new parliament in order to push for negotiations between Kiev and the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
With the protracted conflict in the southeastern part of the country, not all Ukrainians were given the opportunity to vote. According to the election commission, elections were held on territories containing about 80 percent of the country’s population, excluding parts of the two pro-Russian rebel-held regions and Crimea. In the areas where voters were allowed to vote in Donetsk and Luhansk, the pro-Moscow Opposition Bloc received wide support, with more than 35 percent of the vote.
“Significant support for the Opposition Bloc in the eastern parts of Ukraine could create big headaches for the authorities in Kiev,” writes Sergei Kuznetsov at The Financial Times. “Russia’s leaders may toughen their stance, using the pro-Russian vote in the east as justification for Russian support of anti-Kiev factions.”
Mr. Kuznetsov points out that the Opposition Bloc, which includes former officials from the pro-Russian regime of ousted President Victor Yanukovych, received almost 9.3 percent of the vote.
The Kyiv Post writer Daryna Shevchenko has harsh words for those who voted for the Opposition Bloc. “If more Ukrainians put a little effort in analyzing information, Ukraine’s new post-revolutionary parliament wouldn’t have some 60 lawmakers who supported the so-called ‘dictatorship laws’ on Jan. 16 — the boiling point of Yanukovych’s vile regime,” Ms. Shevchenko writes, calling those voters “blind.”
“Dear blind ones, five years until the next election is long enough time to open your eyes. And I hope you will. But you are to blame for the harm that may be done to Ukraine in-between.”