Azernews.Az

With votes being counted after parliamentary elections in Ukraine, the party of President Viktor Yanukovych has claimed victory after exit polls showed the Party of Regions winning about 28 percent of the vote, Radio Liberty reported.

The exit polls showed the party of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, Fatherland, looked set to win 25 percent, followed by Udar (Punch), led by world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, with about 15 percent.

The antigovernment Freedom party and the pro-government Communists both looked set to get about 12 percent.

Early preliminary results, however, suggested a bigger win for the Party of Regions.

With some 20 percent of polling stations reporting, the Party of Regions had about 37 percent of the vote, followed by Fatherland with some 20 percent. The Communist Party had 15.5 percent, and Klitschko's Udar had 12 percent. The antigovernment Freedom party had 7 percent.

These results were from party-list voting.

Litmus Test

The West has said the elections to the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada were a "litmus test" for Ukraine's fragile democracy.

Earlier, both sides claimed victory.

Ukrainian Prime Minister and the leader of the ruling Party of Regions Mykola Azarov said his party's victory was "obvious."

"It is absolutely obvious that the Party of Regions has won. It is obvious to everyone. It will not be obvious only to a handful of voices. Some would very much wish that we lost but we won. We won in an absolutely fair fight," Azarov said.

Party of Regions officials claim their share of the vote should increase as individual races are tabulated.

Half of the seats up for grabs will come from party lists. The other half will come from individual contests.

Arseny Yatsenyuk, the leader of the United Opposition alliance which includes Tymoshenko's party as well, said exit polls proved the public supported the opposition, not the government.

"After the announcement of the exit poll it is absolutely clear that the Ukrainian people support the opposition and not the authorities. It is very important now that after the polls are closed the votes be counted, there should be no violations, there should be no falsifications. And the most important thing is not the party list, but also the vote count in every single-mandate constituency," Yatsenyuk said.

The elections were the first big electoral test in Ukraine since Orange Revolution icon Tymoshenko lost a close presidential vote to Yanukovych in early 2010.

Tymoshenko, who is currently outside of prison receiving treatment in hospital, voted while lying down in bed in the presence of two international observers.

Tymoshenko's daughter, Yevhenia, said after casting her ballot in Kyiv.

"I was not able to vote together with my parents as I usually did because my mother was unlawfully arrested, and against her constitutional right she was not given an opportunity to take part in the political process as she is the main opponent of [President Viktor] Yanukovych," Tymoshenko said. "Therefore, today I've voted for freedom of my mother, for freedom of political prisoners, for justice, and for our country returning to democracy so we will not wake up tomorrow in a concentration camp or in jail."

The Central Election Commission said it will publish preliminary results on October 29 at 1000 local time.

International monitors included an 800-member team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The OSCE observer mission is due to hold a news conference on October 29 at 1430 local time.