00:46Ukraine: Poroshenko flies to Kramatorsk on election day
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a surprise visit to Kramatorsk in east Ukraine on the day of the nation's early parliamentary elections, Sunday. Meanwhile Poroshenko's wife, Maryna, cast her vote alone in Kiev earlier in the day.
Polling stations opened across the country at 8:00 local time (GMT+2), with voters set to choose half of the seats in Ukraine’s 450-seat parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. The remaining 50% will be made up of candidates running in individual districts across Ukraine.
Ukraine’s next regularly scheduled parliamentary elections would have been held in 2017, but early elections were called after Poroshenko dismissed the Rada on August 25, citing “5th columnists” as the reason for its dissolve.
Ukraine has around 36,514,491 registered voters, who will choose from the 29 political parties and blocs who have presented their party lists for the early election. The main contenders are Petro Poroshenko's Bloc, followed by the Radical Party, led by Oleh Lyashko. Other running parties include Yulia Tymoshenko’s All-Ukrainian Union Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Arseny Yatsenyuk’s Ukraine's People's Front Party.
00:46Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made a surprise visit to Kramatorsk in east Ukraine on the day of the nation's early parliamentary elections, Sunday. Meanwhile Poroshenko's wife, Maryna, cast her vote alone in Kiev earlier in the day.
Polling stations opened across the country at 8:00 local time (GMT+2), with voters set to choose half of the seats in Ukraine’s 450-seat parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. The remaining 50% will be made up of candidates running in individual districts across Ukraine.
Ukraine’s next regularly scheduled parliamentary elections would have been held in 2017, but early elections were called after Poroshenko dismissed the Rada on August 25, citing “5th columnists” as the reason for its dissolve.
Ukraine has around 36,514,491 registered voters, who will choose from the 29 political parties and blocs who have presented their party lists for the early election. The main contenders are Petro Poroshenko's Bloc, followed by the Radical Party, led by Oleh Lyashko. Other running parties include Yulia Tymoshenko’s All-Ukrainian Union Batkivshchyna (Fatherland), and Arseny Yatsenyuk’s Ukraine's People's Front Party.