Billionaire oligarch Petro Poroshenko seemed set to come out on top in the first round of crucial presidential elections in Ukraine, which were marred when several million voters in the east were prevented from taking part by a spreading separatist insurgency.
Private exit polls were said to show Mr Poroshenko with a big lead over Yulia Tymoshenko, former premier and co-leader of the 2004 “Orange revolution”. But it was unclear if the confectionery magnate nicknamed the “Chocolate King” would muster the 50 per cent needed to avoid a second-round vote in three weeks’ time.
The fact that large parts of the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions were unable to vote – with no polling stations open in Donetsk, the biggest city in the eastern industrial heartland – may have boosted the pro-western tycoon’s lead.