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Ukraine's pro-West parties negotiate coalition

27 October 2014, 18:44 CET
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Ukraine's pro-West parties negotiate coalition

Petro Poroshenko - Photo EU Council

(KIEV) - The pro-Western winners of Ukraine's parliamentary poll entered coalition talks Monday, but attacks by pro-Russian insurgents in the east highlighted the obstacles to their ambitious promises of peace and deepening ties with the European Union.

The day after pro-West and moderate nationalist forces backing President Petro Poroshenko scored a big win in Sunday's election, the hard work of forming a ruling coalition began.

With 67 percent of precincts reporting, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front and the Petro Poroshenko Bloc were neck and neck, getting about 22 percent of the votes each.

Expectations were that the two would work together, with Yatsenyuk retaining the premier's post.

Russia welcomed the outcome of the election as backing for "a peaceful resolution" of the separatist war, while the head of the EU executive, Jose Manuel Barroso, said the election was a "victory of democracy and European reforms".

US President Barack Obama called the vote -- declared mostly fair by a European observer team on Monday -- an "important milestone in Ukraine's democratic development."

- Rebel rockets -

But in a fiery reminder of the hurdles Poroshenko faces, an election-period lull in the rebel-held east ended early Monday in a barrage of artillery fire.

Dozens of rockets fired by pro-Russian insurgents could be heard blasting from the city of Donetsk towards a nearby Ukrainian military base, AFP correspondents said.

More shelling was reported near the government-held coastal city of Mariupol, while military authorities reported the deaths of two soldiers in a rebel attack on Sunday near Lugansk.

Kiev and its Western backers see the six-month uprising, and the March annexation by Russian troops of Crimea, as an attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to cripple Ukraine.

But Moscow says it is simply coming to the aid of Russian speakers who feel threatened by Ukraine's lurch toward the West.

In response, the United States and European Union have imposed damaging economic sanctions on Moscow, fuelling the kind of East-West tensions last seen in the Cold War.

Sunday's election was meant to finalise a revolution that began in February, when huge street protests ousted Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych after he abruptly rejected a landmark EU pact.

Communists and other Yanukovych allies were routed Sunday, although a party made up of his former associates won a small share of seats through proportional representation.

Radicals who rejected Poroshenko's peace deal with the insurgents did poorly, as did corruption-tainted politicians who had steered Ukraine through two decades of stuttering reforms.

- Tough challenges -

However, the pro-West regime now faces giant challenges: restoring relations with Russia, ending the insurgency, eradicating corruption, tackling massive debt, and resolving a near permanent crisis over Russian gas supplies.

"Poroshenko and his government will have a difficult time resolving the task of moving into Europe," Yuriy Romanenko at the Stratagema think-tank told AFP.

"The war will also go on for a long time. The standoff there could continue for several years."

Moscow gave a guarded thumbs up to the new Poroshenko-Yatsenyuk era.

Deputy Foreign Minister Grigoriy Karasin said the results showed "that parties which support a peaceful resolution of the internal Ukrainian crisis received a majority".

He also said that "the election, in spite of a rather harsh and dirty campaign, is valid."

Western governments welcomed the vote, with France saying the results "confirmed the people's fundamental choice".

Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna told Ukraine that it "had guarantees of support from the European Union and the United States. Everybody wants to help Ukraine in its economic reforms."

However, he also urged Ukraine "to resolve its relations with Russia".

- Peace talks or breakup? -

Poroshenko says there can be no military victory against the separatists and that he is ready to negotiate autonomy, though not independence, for pro-Russian regions.

A Moscow-backed truce agreement signed by Kiev and the separatists on September 5 calmed the worst fighting, despite frequent violations, especially around the disputed Donetsk airport.

But after so much bloodshed it remains unclear whether either side is ready for tough compromise, with some analysts expecting the fighting to intensify now that the election is over.

Despite the rise of relatively moderate parties, radical nationalists, including large formations of volunteer fighters, remain an important force in Ukraine.

On Sunday, voters living in Crimea and the separatist areas of the east -- about five million people in all -- were excluded from the election. Twenty-seven seats in the 450-seat parliament will remain empty.

That, plus the separatists' plan to hold their own leadership polls next Sunday, risked adding another layer of formality to what already appears to be the de facto breakup of Ukraine.


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