Poroshenko's bloc leads Ukraine's parliamentary election

KIEV - The political bloc that supports Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday launched talks with the People's Front party of Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, in a bid to form a coalition after early parliamentary elections.

"Negotiations just began -- there were consultations between the president and the prime minister on the issue," Yuriy Lutsenko, the leader of the Poroshenko Bloc, told reporters. "Today we are also planning a meeting in the broader format between the representatives of the two political forces."

Meanwhile, Lutsenko said that his bloc also considered the Samopomich party headed by Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi, the nationalist Svoboda party and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko's Fatherland Party to be potential coalition partners.

The political blocs that support Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk appeared to be winning a majority of seats in the country's legislative body and becoming the core of the new coalition after early parliamentary elections on Sunday.

With 48 percent of the ballots counted, the People's Front led the race with 21.63 percent of the votes while the Poroshenko Bloc took 21.46 percent.

As many as 29 political parties and 1,401 candidates contested in the snap parliamentary polls, which experts called "the most controversial election in the history of independent Ukraine," to help their country shake off an ongoing crisis.

According to the Central Election Commission, the final turnout of the voting reached 52.42 percent.