KIEV, Ukraine -- Caught in a battle for influence between Russia and the West, Ukrainians elected Petro Poroshenko as president Sunday, turning to a pro-European billionaire to lead them out of six months of turmoil.
The special election was called by the nation's parliament to replace Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kiev on Feb. 21 after a failed but bloody attempt to suppress a civic uprising, and whose toppling as president set off Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Results were unofficial as of Sunday night.
While the election allows Ukraine to open a new chapter in its history -- even President Vladimir Putin of Russia indicated recently that he would accept the result -- Poroshenko now faces the task of trying to calm and reunite a country that has been on the edge of financial collapse and on the verge of civil war. Among his chief tasks will be to ease tensions with Russia.
"The first steps of our team at the beginning of the presidential work will be to put an end to war, to put an end to chaos, to end disorder and to bring peace to the land of Ukraine -- united, unitary Ukraine," Poroshenko said in a speech at an arts center in Kiev, where he declared victory shortly after the polls closed. "We need to do all our best to bring in European values."
Exit poll results showed Poroshenko -- a confections tycoon known as The Chocolate King -- with a wide lead over his strongest rival, the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. He appeared poised to easily clear the simple-majority threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
Poroshenko appeared for his victory speech with former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, a leader of the street protests that deposed Yanukovych. Klitschko was elected Sunday as mayor of Kiev.
In his remarks, Poroshenko said he would push for early parliamentary elections -- this year -- answering a demand by critics of the Yanukovych government who have said installing a new president is not sufficient.
Legislative elections would have a potentially far-reaching effect, not just reshaping the parliament but also allowing for an entirely new government. In February, lawmakers voted to return to a 2004 version of the Constitution, which designates the parliament, not the president, to choose a prime minister and Cabinet members.
Despite formidable obstacles in the east, where armed separatists largely prevented voting Sunday, and in Crimea, election officials reported robust turnout throughout the rest of the country. Opora, a monitoring group, estimated turnout nationwide at 60 percent.
In Donetsk, the most populous region in the country, just 2 percent of registered voters cast ballots Sunday, according to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a nonprofit organization whose workers monitored the vote.
The tiny turnout in the east had much to do with separatist interventions. For days leading up to the vote, armed men closed polling stations and seized voter lists, elections stamps and sometimes even poll workers. In all, only a fifth of the region's polling stations were open Sunday, with a turnout at those of about 12 percent, according to the committee.
But international observers still predicted that the presidential vote would receive high marks in meeting standards of fairness.
"There was a sense of determination about it -- to get it right," said Madeleine Albright, a former U.S. secretary of state who was in Kiev as an observer. "In many ways, Ukraine spoke through its vote."
Poroshenko, 48, faces skepticism even among many who voted for him because they are wary of his status as a billionaire businessman and because he is a veteran in Ukraine's notoriously corrupt politics.
He has vowed repeatedly to set Ukraine on a pro-European course, and he has pledged to sign the political and trade agreements with the European Union that Yanukovych abandoned, setting off the uprising last fall.
But Poroshenko has deep business interests in Russia and has previously served in pro-Russia governments, creating some optimism in Moscow that negotiations are possible. In a sign of the intricate, even personal, nature of the relationship, the Russian government seized bank accounts in Russia belonging to Poroshenko's chocolate company, Roshen, this year and closed its factory and warehouse in southern Russia as part of an investigation into unspecified criminal charges.
Poroshenko has expressed a willingness to mend ties with Russia, but on Sunday he insisted those discussions would also have to involve Ukraine's territorial claim to Crimea.
In Kiev, there were long lines at polling stations, and voters generally expressed resolve that the country needed to open a new chapter, with a new leader, even if many expressed disappointment in the choices offered.
"We are stuck in everything," said Tatyana Zhukova, a retired engineer, who said she had just voted for Poroshenko. "I don't see new leaders."
Ilya Danko, 31, an architect, said he had voted for Poroshenko with the hope of calming the country by avoiding a second round.
"It's like choosing the best from the worst," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Sabrina Tavernise, Andrew Roth and Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times.
A Section on 05/26/2014
