Zelensky's party heads for majority

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's party looks likely to win the most seats in the country's parliamentary election, the Central Election Commission disclosed on Monday.

The latest data suggested members of the president's Servant of People party are leading in around 120 out of 199 constituencies as of 9:15 am local time, according to a Xinhua News Agency report.

The commanding lead will give Zelensky control of parliament as he has been seeking to form a new government following his landslide victory in April's presidential election.

The Sunday's election was held after Zelensky dissolved the parliament after he took office in May. Despite a lack of political experience, he has promised to stamp out corruption and end a separatist war.

The exit polls, which were conducted by the 112 Ukrainian TV channel and the TSN TV channel after voters left polling places, suggested Zelensky's party will still need a coalition partner to form a government, despite its lead in the voting.

The exit polls indicated that five political parties will win seats in the election.

According to Ukraine Interfax news agency, Servant of the People will win from 42.7 to 44.4 percent of votes, followed by the Opposition Platform For Life party (11.5 to 12.5 percent), former president Pyotr Poroshenko's European Solidarity party (8.5-8.9 percent), Batkivshchina party (7.7-8.5 percent) and Voice party (6-6.5 percent).

This puts the Servant of the People party on track to pick up more than half the parliament's 450 seats, the best showing by any party in Ukraine's post-Soviet history.

Speaking shortly after exit polls were released, Zelensky said his primary goals were to bring peace and tackle corruption.

"Our main priorities - and I repeat this for every Ukrainian - are to end the war, return our prisoners and defeat the corruption that persists in Ukraine," he said at his party's election headquarters.

He also said he was looking for a "new face and a specialist in the economy" to become the next prime minister.

The result of the vote will bring a host of newcomers into parliament and government. They will face a long list of challenges in a country heavily dependent on foreign aid and scarred by years of war with separatists, Xinhua reported.

The chairman of the Russian Federation Council's International Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, said that Zelensky has succeeded in reformatting the Ukrainian parliament "from oppositional to relatively loyal".

Kosachev wrote in his Facebook account that the time of real responsibility starts for the Ukrainian president now as he can no longer blame an uncooperative parliament as an excuse.

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/23/2019 page12)