Updated 9:35 p.m. Moscow Time
KIEV, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - The Petro Poroshenko Bloc is leading Ukraine's snap parliamentary elections on Sunday with around 23 percent of the ballot as seven political parties have passed the vote threshold in Ukrainian snap elections on Sunday, according to three exit polls.
Poroshenko's bloc is closely followed by Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk's People's Front with some 21.8 percent, Samopomoshch (Selfhelp) party headed by mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovy is in the third place with some 13.2-14.2 percent.
According to the international exit poll, pro-Russian Opposition bloc enters parliament with 7.8 percent of the vote, while Oleh Lyashko’s populist nationalist Radical Party - with 6.4 percent, the radical nationalist Svoboda party - with 5.8 percent, Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party led by former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko - with 5.6 percent.
President Petro Poroshenko dissolved the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada in August and ordered snap general elections to ensure a pro-Europe majority in the parliament while clearing out lawmakers loyal to ex-leader Viktor Yanukovych .
Only 423 deputies are expected to be elected, according to the Central Election Commission, which has ruled out any voting in 12 districts of Crimea as well as 15 districts in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The electoral threshold has been set at five percent.
The elections were held against the background of a serious political and economic crisis in the country. Despite the ceasefire agreement on September 5 between between government troops and independence supporters of the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics, both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violating the truce.
