A democratic first: One party wins majority in Ukraine’s parliament

This Election Day live blog stopped updating. 

For the election results, see: Latest updates on parliamentary vote count

Snap parliamentary elections took place in Ukraine on July 21.

Ukrainians were electing a parliament of 424 members. Of them, 225 are elected on party tickets, and 199 are elected in local races in single-member districts. Thus, citizens cast a vote for the party they support and one for a local representative. Voting results can be monitored here on the Central Election Commission website. Turnout was about 50 percent for the parliamentary race, down from 62 percent in the spring presidential votes.

The parliament is elected for a term of five years. It cannot be dissolved for one year after the election.

The Kyiv Post was keeping track of the latest developments from Election Day. 

8:05 a.m., July 21 — Vote count results, with 35.5 percent of voting reports counted.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People — 42.19 percent

Opposition Platform – For Life — 12.75 percent

Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity — 8.71 percent 

Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna — 8.15 percent

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk’s Golos — 6.39 percent

7:56 a.m. – Igor Kononenko, a top ally of ex-President Petro Poroshenko and a former member of his party, lost in District 94 in Kyiv Oblast, according to exit polls and preliminary vote count results. Oleksandr Dubinsky from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party won with 31.51 percent in the district, while Kononenko got 17.19 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. As of now, 11 percent of voting reports have been counted in the district.

7:48 a.m. – Oleksandr Hranovsky, a controversial ex-member of former President Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc, lost in District 169 in Kharkiv, according to both exit polls and preliminary vote count results. Oleksandr Kunitsky from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Servant of the People party won with 48.14 percent, and Hranovsky received 15.66 percent, according to the Central Election Commission. As of now, 54 percent of voting reports have been counted in the district.

11:40 p.m. — Shortly after the first exit poll results came in, one of the newly elected lawmakers, Anastasia Krasnosilska, No. 8 on the Servant of the People list, said that parliament never was her goal.

“For me it’s not about personal ambition but result. I see here a huge window of opportunity. I see what can be done in a relatively short period of time,” she told Kyiv Post.

Former board member at the Anti-Corruption Action Center, Krasnosilska will be involved in crafting anti-corruption legislation.

11:20 p.m. — Dmytro Razumkov, head of the Servant of the People party and future leader of the largest parliamentary faction, said that “it is very important for us to have a big, coordinated team aimed at the result.”

In his words, one of the first moves to reform the parliament will be removal of lawmaker immunity as well as introduction of penalties for no show and voting for absent MPs and limiting the number of draft laws one faction can submit.

10:40 p.m. — The Servant of the People party said its representatives won in seven single-member districts, in Dnipro and Kyiv, based on their own exit polls. As the national exit polls revealed the results of the party vote, the winners in the 199 single-member districts remain a mystery until the vote count is done.

10:15 p.m. — The National Exit Poll has released updated results. These are the new results as of 8 p.m., when polling stations closed:

Zelensky’s Servant of the People — 44.2 percent

Opposition Platform – For Life — 11.4 percent

Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity — 8.8 percent 

Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna — 7.4 percent

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk’s Golos — 6.5 percent

Here is an updated calculation of the number of seats each party will receive in parliament as a result of the party list vote. It doesn’t include the 199 seats that will be distributed among the winners in the single-member districts.

9 p.m. — Here’s a projection of how many seats the parties win in the parliament, according to the preliminary results of the National Exit Polls. It doesn’t show the full composition of the parliament, only the 225 seats that are assigned through the party vote.

8:30 p.m. — President Volodymyr Zelensky hinted that there might be snap local elections this year as well.

“As for the local elections… don’t relax,” Zelensky said after the exit poll results showed his party was leading with 43.9 percent of the vote.

The local elections, where mayors and local councils are chosen, are scheduled to take place in 2020. However, there have been rumors that Zelensky will try to arrange a snap election, like he did with the parliamentary election, which he set for July instead of October.

8:05 p.m. — The National Exit Poll preliminary results are in. As of 6 p.m., it shows five parties that can make it to the parliament:

Zelensky’s Servant of the People — 43.9 percent

Opposition Platform – For Life — 11.5 percent

Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity — 8.9 percent 

Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna — 7.6 percent

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk’s Golos — 6.3 percent

“It’s not just a sign of trust, it’s a huge responsibility for me and my team,” Zelensky said, speaking at his party’s campaign headquarters. “I’m sure it means the end of the war.”

6:40 p.m. — Representatives of the pro-Russian party Opposition Platform For Life claim there are mass falsification of the votes in the southern and eastern regions of Ukraine, indicating that they might be getting less support than they hoped in this regions.

6:15 p.m. — How is your election day going? For one 94-year-old woman in the city of Lviv, not so well. She tried to eat her ballot, the Hromadske television channel reported.

The elderly woman came to her local polling place to vote, only to find out that she was registered for home voting — a option for people who cannot make it to their polling place because of health or mobility issues. When the local electoral commission informed her that she should go home to vote, the woman insisted on voting at the polling place.

Eventually, the commission decided to allow her to vote there. However, they insisted that she put her completed ballot in the portable ballot box for home voting. She didn’t like that, and members of the electoral commission had to prevent her from putting her ballot in the main ballot box.

As a result, the commission summoned the woman’s children. The end result was a confrontation that lasted almost four hours (!) in total. It ended when the 94-year-old woman tore up her ballot and tried to eat it, as seen in the video below.

5:14 p.m. — Turnout as of 4 p.m. has risen to 36.47 percent now that data from all of Ukraine’s regions is in. The highest turnout was recorded in Chernihiv Oblast (41.69 percent), Poltava Oblast (41.53 percent) and Khmelnytsky Oblast (40.33 percent). The lowest turnout was recorded in Zakarpattia Oblast (28.42 percent)

4:09 p.m. — As of 4 p.m., 34.71 percent of eligible voters have cast their ballots, according to the Central Election Commission. Compare that to the presidential election in April, when just over 45 percent of voters had cast ballots by 3 p.m. However, this is not necessarily surprising. Turnout is expected to be lower than during the presidential vote, when over 60 percent of eligible voters took part.

3:15 p.m. ― Although a lot of minor violations were reported, there have been no serious violations that can influence the result of the election, representatives of the Central Election Commission said at a 3 p.m. briefing in Kyiv.

2:50 p.m. ― Serhiy Lyovochkin, one of the top members of Opposition Platform For Life, a pro-Russian party, cast a vote at the polling station in Kyiv.

Lyovochkin was the chief of staff for the disgraced ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, but left his job shortly before Yanukovych was ousted by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. He then got re-elected to parliament with Opposition Bloc, a successor of Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions. In 2018, the Opposition Bloc split. The breakaway group joined forces with Volodymyr Medvedchuk, a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and formed the Opposition Platform.

2:40 p.m. ― Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a rock star and leader of the Golos (Voice) party, voted in Kyiv. Vakarchuk commented on the rumors that he was going to resign from the parliament as soon as he gets his party in there.

“These are nothing but rumors,” he said.

Vakarchuk already dropped out of the parliament once. In 2007, he was elected on the ticket of Nasha Ukraine (Our Ukraine), the party of then-President Viktor Yushchenko. Vakarchuk was frustrated and disappointed with the messy politics at the parliament, and resigned in 2008.

2 p.m. ― Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman voted in Vinnytsya, his home town where he used to be the mayor. Formerly a lawmaker on Poroshenko’s party list, at this election Groysman is leading his own party, Ukrainian Strategy. Its chances of making it to the parliament are slim, according to the polls.

1:45 p.m. ― Ex-President Petro Poroshenko voted at a polling station in Kyiv. After losing his re-election bid in April, Poroshenko is leading his rebranded party, European Solidarity, into the parliament. The European Solidarity had the third result in the polls. It polled at 7.7 percent three days before the election, according to the Rating Group.

1:30 p.m. ― Parliament Chairman Andriy Parubiy forgot to bring his passport to the polling station, and had to send someone to bring it to him, according to the Ukrainian media. He eventually voted.

1:20 p.m. ― President Volodymyr Zelensky cast a ballot at a polling station in Kyiv. He was asked about the candidates for the prime minister.

Zelensky said he was negotiating with several candidates. He said he wanted the prime minister to be “a professional economist without a political past.”

He said that one of the first tasks for the new parliament must be to cancel the lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution.

When he voted at the presidential election in April, Zelensky violated the law by demonstrating his ballot for the media, and had to pay a fine. This time, he was more careful.

1 p.m. ― Some 19 percent of the voters cast a ballot as of 12 p.m. of Election Day, according to the Central Election Commission. It’s an estimation based on what was reported by the heads of electoral districts. The turnout is a little lower than at the second round of the presidential election in April, when 17 percent voted by 11 a.m.

12:20 p.m. ― The police registered 382 offenses at the election as of 11 a.m. They include 115 cases of the illegal campaigning on Election Day and several fake bomb threats.

12 p.m. ― Serhiy Prytula, a popular showman and TV host who runs for parliament on the ticket of the Golos party, also voted in the election. Although he is new to politics, Prytula has been representing Golos on many political talk shows on TV in the weeks leading up to the election. Prytula broke his leg a month before the election, and has been walking on crutches throughout the campaign.

11:50 a.m. ― Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the Batkivshchyna party, also voted in Kyiv. She dodged the question of whether she will be the next prime minister, saying that it depends on how the people vote in the election.

11:30 a.m. ― Metropolitan Epiphanius, the head of the united Orthodox Church of Ukraine, also shared a photo of his voting. Epiphanius played a role in the presidential election in March, where he de facto endorsed Petro Poroshenko, who was running for re-election and lost. In the parliamentary election, Epiphanius made no endorsement. He called upon everyone to vote honestly and consciously.

10:50 a.m. ― There is at least one polling station where all the registered voters cast their votes before 10 a.m., according to the election watchdog Opora. It’s the station at the Pokrovsky prison in Dnipro Oblast, where 96 prisoners voted.

10:40 a.m. ― Dmytro Razumkov, the head of the Servant of the People party, voted in Kyiv. The Servant of the People, the party of President Volodymyr Zelensky, is an unchallenged leader of the election. Three days before the election, it polled at 49.5 percent.

Outside of the polling station, Razumkov said: “I am sure we will be able not only to keep the country’s economy stable but improve it.” Likely to become the leader of the ruling faction in the future parliament, Razumkov said it was too early to comment on the forecasts that he is a candidate for speaker of parliament.

9:45 a.m. ― Yuriy Boyko, one of the leaders of the Opposition Platform For Life party voted in a village near Kyiv. The Opposition Platform is a pro-Russian party that has been taking the second place in the polls, rounding up some 10 percent of support. Boyko is the first representative of a leading party to vote today.

9:30 a.m. ― As of 9 a.m., only eight polling stations didn’t open, according to the police. There are 29,885 polling stations at this election, including 102 polling stations abroad. The eight stations remained close for various reasons. In one case, a station didn’t get the ballots in time. The closed stations may still open during the day.

9 a.m. ― Here are the key facts about the election: who is running, why there is a snap election, and more.

8:30 a.m. ― One notorious candidate didn’t make it on the ballot after all. Oleksandr Onyshchenko, an exiled lawmaker accused of embezzlement, has been suing to participate in the election. It wasn’t until the night before the election that the Supreme Court finally upheld the authorities’ decision to deny him the right to run for parliament.

8:10 a.m. ― The voter turnout at the election is expected to be lower than the turnout during the presidential election in April when 62 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot. The last parliamentary election, in October 2014, saw a 52 percent turnout.

8 a.m. ― Polling stations open in Ukraine. They will stay open until 8 p.m.