MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) does not recognize the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada (parliament) elections held on Sunday, first deputy speaker of the State Duma lower house of Russia’s parliament, First Deputy Chairman of the CPRF Central Committee Ivan Melnikov said on Monday.
Melnikov described the election results as “detrimental for Ukraine.” He said “an orange Rada will be replaced by a brown Rada” with its “neo-Nazi minded and Russophobe politicians.” This will make the Ukrainian parliament “an aggressive ultra-right monopoly,” Melnikov said.
He said CPRF “cannot recognize the results of these elections,” as the “election campaign was held in the conditions of total pressure on the politicians and electorate.” “No elections can be valid amid fear for life,” Melnikov said.
According to the Duma first deputy speaker, “the ideological opposition to Kiev’s course, first of all the CPU (Communist Party of Ukraine) was, in essence, forced into the underground from which it is difficult to organize work with citizens.” The Russian lawmaker says this is the reason for the low percentage of the Ukrainian communists’ voting.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko previously said he regarded the absence of representatives of the country’s Communist Party as one of the main results of the Verkhovna Rada elections. “For the first time in 96 years, the Ukrainian parliament will have no Communists. Ukrainians have delivered the final blow to the fifth political column,” Poroshenko said in a statement released by his press service.
As 28.95% of the ballots have been counted, six parties have passed to the Rada. The People’s Front of Ukrainian Premier Arseniy Yatsenyuk with 21.67% of the vote is in the lead. The presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc is so far second with 21.60% of the vote.
Samopomoshch (Self-Help) party led by Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy (10.75%) is third, and the fourth place is held by the Opposition Bloc of Yuriy Boyko with 9.62% of the vote.
The Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, which was expected to win the second or third place, in the view of political analysts, is only fifth with 7.53% of the vote. Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) Party is sixth with 5.82% of the vote.