Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko's party today led the final polls before Sunday's parliamentary vote held as the country faced an unresolved Russian gas dispute and raging hostilities in the east.
With the elections approaching, Kiev said attacks by the pro-Russian separatists quietened down after Poroshenko spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday, but bilateral gas negotiations have apparently stalled.
A final opinion poll put the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, a new force organised ahead of the snap vote, on 30 percent, meaning it will likely have to form a coalition with hawkish nationalists who oppose holding talks with Moscow over the conflict in the east, which has killed more than 3,700 people.
The Kiev-based Foundation for Democratic Initiatives had the Radical Party of populist nationalist Oleg Lyashko in second on about 13 percent of the vote, with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk's People's Front grabbing nearly 11 percent.
Samopomich - a new party headed by the mayor of the western Ukranian-speaking city Lviv - was on 8.5 per cent.
The Strong Ukraine group of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych's ally Sergiy Tygypko and the Opposition Bloc of tycoons and politicians who once backed the former president, are also likely to pass the 5.0 percent threshold.
Both enjoyed the strongest support in the southeast, where pro-Russian insurgents are boycotting the polls and will hold their own separatist vote November 2.
Kiev is under pressure to find a solution in its latest gas war with Moscow night temperatures already dipping below zero.
With the elections approaching, heating has been switched on this week in several Ukrainian regions, including in the nearly three-million-strong capital, where it came today.
Russia cut gas supplies to Ukraine in June, demanding that the new government pay sharply higher prices in advance for new deliveries - something cash-strapped Kiev is unlikely to do unless it is helped out by Europe, which relies on Russian gas.
But although Moscow and Kiev said earlier this week that they are on the verge of finding a solution, EU-brokered talks faltered yesterday, and a new meeting was set for October 29 - three days after the elections.
