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Zelensky’s party leads in Ukraine’s parliamentary polls with about 50% of votes

Yulia Timoshenko’s Batkivshchina, former President Pyotr Poroshenko’s European Solidarity, the Opposition Platform For Life and Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party have surpassed the five-percent threshold

© Valentin Sprinchak/TASS

KIEV, July 21. /TASS/. First official data from Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC) echo exit poll results indicating that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party is leading Sunday’s snap parliamentary elections.

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Thus, CEC said after counting 0.04% of ballots that the Servant of the People is winning 47.58% of the vote.

At this point, four more parties are surpassing the five-percent threshold. They are Yulia Timoshenko’s Batkivshchina, former President Pyotr Poroshenko’s European Solidarity, the Opposition Platform For Life, and Oleg Lyashko’s Radical Party.

According to exit polls, the Servant of the People is winning from 42.7 to 44.4% of votes. It is followed by the Opposition Platform For Life, which has from 11.5 to 12.5% of votes. Next are European Solidarity, a party of Ukraine’s former President Pyotr Poroshenko, with 8.5-8.9% of the vote, Yulia Timoshenko’s Batkivshchina with 7.7-8.5%, and singer Svyatoslav Vakarchuk’s Voice with 6-6.5% of votes.

Exit polls were conducted by the 112 Ukrainia TV channel, the TSN television channel, Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), Ilk Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Fund and Alexander Razumkov’s Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies.

On Sunday, Ukrainians elected 225 lawmakers by party lists and 199 more in single-member constituencies. After Crimea reunified with Russia and because of the conflict in Donbass, the number of constituencies was reduced by 26, to 424 instead of 450 envisaged by the constitution.

This was the last time that voting is taking place under a mixed majority-proportional system as a system based on open party lists is expected to be introduced in the country before the next parliamentary election.

To win seats in the parliament, a party needs to enroll support of at least five percent of voters and candidates running for parliament in single-member constituencies need to score the majority of votes in their constituency.

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