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Summary The criticism by the OSCE is all the more bitter for Ukraine.
Ukraines ruling party was set Monday for victory against the allies of jailed ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko after a legislative election that international observers condemned as a setback for the ex-Soviet states nascent democracy.Prime Minister Mykola Azarov predicted that the Regions Party would win an outright majority in the new parliament following a disappointing performance by another opposition group organised by the world heavyweight boxer Vitaly Klichko.We expect these results to hold, Azarov told reporters. This means that the Regions Party has scored a resounding victory. But observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issued an unusually strongly-worded statement describing the election process as a step backwards for Ukraine.Considering the abuse of power, and the excessive role of money in this election, democratic progress appears to have reversed in Ukraine, said OSCE special coordinator Walburga Habsburg Douglas.One should not have to visit a prison to hear from leading political figures in the country.Ukraines 2010 presidential election -- which saw Viktor Yanukovych defeat Tymoshenko amid disappointment over the fruits of the 2004 Orange Revolution popular uprising -- had been hailed by observers as the cleanest ever in the ex-Soviet Union.Certain aspects of the pre-election period constituted a step backwards compared with recent national elections, the OSCE report said.Washington and EU nations -- fearful of creeping Ukrainian authoritarianism -- had urged Yanukovychs government to stage a clean vote that could prove its commitment to the values of the European Union that it hopes to join one day.The criticism by the OSCE is all the more bitter for Ukraine as it is due to take the chairmanship of the body in 2013. Tymoshenkos party said it had conducted a parallel count which showed the Regions Party leading her faction by a much narrower margin of just over four percent -- an outcome which had also been predicted by exit polls.The ex-premier then announced she was launching a hunger strike from inside her state hospital where she was moved this summer from jail to receive treatment on a debilitating back condition.These elections were falsified from start to finish, Tymoshenko said in a statement read by her lawyer Sergiy Vlasenko. She added that the action would last until the true results are established.Yanukovychs Regions Party has 34.2 percent of the vote against 22.5 percent for Tymoshenkos opposition party with 61 percent of the precincts reporting in the proportional system that will determine half the seats in the new chamber.The ruling party was also on course to win at least 114 seats out of the 225 that are being determined by first-past-the-post single mandate constituencies.We are expecting that the Regions Party will take the majority in the new parliament, Azarov said.Regions parliamentary faction leader Olexander Efremov said he expected to control 230 seats in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada house of parliament. The Regions Party will have a majority either on its own or with help from MPs from the single mandate constituencies, said Mykhailo Pogrebynsky of the Kiev institute of political research.This is the first time in Ukraines history that the ruling party has won the legislative elections, he added. The final turnout was robust at 58 percent.The Communists were polling strongly in third place with 14.7 percent. Klitschkos new UDAR (Punch) party was on 13.0 percent -- a disappointment given some pre-election opinion polls had placed it in second place.The ultra-nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party was also due to break the five percent threshold needed to make parliament and was polling 8.7 percent. The Tymoshenko and Klitschko parties are expected to form an alliance with Svoboda in a bid to form a bloc large enough to set the chambers agenda. But Klitschko conceded that in all probability the majority will belong to the ruling party.The big loser of these polls appears to be the recently-retired football star Andriy Shevchenko -- an eight-year AC Milan veteran who had astonished his fans by becoming a leading figure in the Ukraine Forward party of former Tymoshenko ally Natalya Korolevska.Initial results showed the party winning just 1.7 percent of the vote and a handful of single mandate seats.
