Pro-presidential party to compete in October elections

The Solidarity party founded by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held its party congress on Aug. 27, electing former political prisoner and interior minister Yuriy Lutsenko as its head. The congress also voted to change the party’s name to Petro Poroshenko Bloc, which voters would better recognize on their ballots. “The main threat in post-maidan Ukraine is the paralysis of reforms. In such conditions, populism infects society,” Lutsenko told the congress. “We have two fronts – the domestic front of criminal officials and oligarchs, and the foreign one, where the children of Genghis Khan are trying to take away the European future of Ukraine.”

Poroshenko signed on Aug. 27 a decree dismissing the seventh convocation of Ukraine’s parliament and holding early parliamentary elections on Oct. 26. The decree took effect the same evening, marking the official start of the campaign season, which was reduced to 60 days.

Zenon Zawada: We expect the Poroshenko Bloc will finish in first place in the parliamentary election, as the current polls indicate, and form the next coalition government. The biggest competition it will face is from the Radical Party of Ukraine led by Oleh Lyashko, a populist force reminiscent of the Movimento 5 Stelle in Italy led by Beppe Grillo and the United Kingdom Independence Party led Nigel Farage. Yet the big difference is that both Poroshenko Bloc and Radical Party are firm supporters of EU-integration, which makes the elections a win-win for Ukraine as a whole.