Voting began in Ukraine's on Sunday in an election that is expected to strengthen President Petro Poroshenko's mandate to end a separatist conflict in the east of the country.
Polling stations opened at 8:00 a.m. local time in the first parliamentary polls since street protests in the capital Kyiv last winter forced Moscow-backed leader Viktor Yanukovich to flee and ushered in a pro-Europe leadership under Poroshenko.
Leader of the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party and former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her husband Oleksander cast ballots in Dnipropetrovsk. (Alexander Pokopenko/Reuters)
Poroshenko called the election early to try to clear out Yanukovich loyalists and produce an assembly that also has a pro-Europe majority.
Opinion polls indicated a political grouping supporting Poroshenko was likely to become the main force in the 450-seat assembly. Such an outcome could increase strains in ties with Russia, which the Kyiv leadership blames for backing the pro-Russian rebels in the east in a conflict that has killed more than 3,700 people and aggravated Ukraine's economic problems.
A win for the 49-year-old confectionery tycoon would give him a mandate to pursue his peace plan for the east and carry out deep reforms sought by Ukraine's European Union partners.
Galina Oleynik from Kyiv hopes the election will help stop the war in eastern Ukraine.
"The most important thing is for all these wars to stop. War is the most horrible thing. And that's why we see how every next election is worse than the previous one, because it is now when we reached the point of war, never before. We had never had war, and now we lived to see it," said Galina Oleynik after casting her ballot soon after the polls opened.
Another voter from Kyiv, Olena Yushchenko, did not expect the election to improve the situation in the country soon.
"I don't expect that this election will bring something unusual, because I know what the situation is, I know how difficult it is for Prime Minister Yatseniuk and for President Poroshenko as well. So I believe that we will live depending on how much they can, how much they give all their effort, and how much they are for the people," Yushchenko said outside a polling station in central Kyiv.
Polling stations close at 8:00 p.m. and exit polls will be available almost immediately.
Twenty-nine parties are running, though only a handful are expected to reach the five per cent barrier required to secure representation in the parliament.
Polls have shown the pro-European Radical Party, led by Oleh Lyashko, in second place, trailing Poroshenko's coalition.
About 2,000 international observers, including a team of about 800 from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, are in place to monitor polling procedures.
Canada's embassy in Ukraine said 300 of those monitors will be Canadian.
More than 60,000 police officers and security forces were being deployed throughout the country for the vote.
With the country on a war footing despite a fragile ceasefire, special arrangements have been made for front line government troops and volunteer battalions to vote.
Thousands of voters will not be able to cast ballots in Crimea — which has been annexed by Russia — and in parts of the east where separatists are in control. Election authorities said voting would not take place in 27 constituencies, including 12 in Crimea, meaning that only 423 deputies will be elected on Sunday.
The separatists themselves, entrenched in the big industrial cities of Donetsk and Luhansk, are ignoring the election and say they will hold a rival poll on Nov. 2. Poroshenko and Western governments have denounced the planned poll as illegitimate.
Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was released from jail as soon as Yanukovich was overthrown, is leading her Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party in the election.
"The revolution of honour must win. That means that Ukraine must become a peaceful and successful European country. This is our duty to the 'Heavenly Hundred,' to the thousands of our Ukrainian patriots who died on the front line, to the millions who stood on all squares of Ukraine," Tymoshenko said as she cast her ballot in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, referring to the protesters killed during protests leading to Yanukovich's downfall.
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