Tycoon wins Ukraine presidential poll

Billionaire chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko has won Ukraine’s presidential election outright in the first round, according to an exit poll.

The exit poll, conducted by three respected Ukrainian survey agencies, found 48-year-old Poroshenko had 55.9% of the vote.

Tymoshenko had secured 12.9%, the poll showed. Full results are expected to be announced today.

The poll, which surveyed 17,000 voters at 400 precincts, claimed a margin of error of 2 percentage points, indicating Poroshenko clearly passed the 50% mark needed to win without a runoff.

Yesterday’s ballot took place despite weeks of fighting in the sprawling eastern regions that form Ukraine’s industrial heartland, where pro-Russia separatist have seized government buildings and battled government troops.

The rebels had vowed to block the ballot in the east — and less than 20% of the polling stations were open there.

The election came three months after the country’s pro-Russia leader fled in February, chased from power by months of protests over corruption and his decision to reject a pact with the European Union and forge closer ties with Moscow, and two months after Russia annexed Crimea.

Some 35.5m Ukrainians were eligible to vote, but separatists in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — which have 5.1m voters — said they would not hold the vote because they were no longer part of Ukraine.

Little voting was taking place in the east. The regional administration in Donetsk said only 426 of 2,430 polling stations in the region were open and none in the city of Donetsk, which has 1 million people. There was no voting in the city of Luhansk either, but some stations were open in the wider Luhansk region.

Sergei Melnichuk, a Ukrainian army battalion commander stationed in Novoaidar, said about 50 armed pro-Russia rebels attacked a polling station trying to seize ballots already cast. He said they were thwarted and 13 were captured.

The Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted deputy interior minister as saying one person was killed and another injured in the fighting.

Poroshenko decried the deadly clashes in his country after casting his ballot in Kiev, where many people wore traditional embroidered shirts in a sign of Ukrainian patriotism.

“I am convinced that this election must finally bring peace to Ukraine, stop lawlessness, stop chaos, stop bandit terror in the east.”