By Rostyslav Khotin Editor of the BBC World Service Ukrainian Section

Ukraine's parliamentary election seems to have been widely misunderstood.

No party emerged with a clear majority, the initial results were misleading, and the relationship between the two leading parties is not as straightforward as party of government versus party of opposition.

The problem is partly that Ukraine's political process is not as transparent as that of most western democracies.

Six myths need to be exploded:

Myth 1: This election was a fight between President Leonid Kuchma and an "opposition" which hopes to impeach him

The worlds of politics and business in Ukraine are closely intertwined, and in both of them making deals is more important than picking quarrels.

In fact only two parties - of Yulia Tymoshenko's bloc and the Socialist Party - campaigned on a clear anti-Kuchma platform. Together they gained just 10% of the vote. By contrast, they would need to rally two thirds of the parliament in order to launch impeachment proceedings.

In her first post-election appearance, Ms Tymoshenko said she was prepared to return to government.

Myth 2: Former Prime Minister Victor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine bloc is "an opposition alliance"

Mr Yushchenko has never described himself as "an opposition" politician. On the contrary, he once even called himself the "son of the president."

Having regained independence after a 350-year break, Ukraine's collective philosophy is one of "state building". Now that Ukraine finally has its hard-won and long-awaited sovereignty, many people are reluctant to oppose the institutions of state, such as the presidency.

In general, "revolution" is not a popular idea in Ukraine. Unlike the Russians, whose motto is "to maximise success", the Ukrainians seek to "minimise the damage".

Myth 3: President Kuchma is seeking immunity after he leaves office in 2004

This is partly true. With two-and-a-half years to go, Mr Kuchma is thinking both about immunity but also about the way he will be treated by historians. Shortly before the election, he said he would like to leave the presidency with Ukraine as an associate member of the European Union.

Myth 4: The Communists are a major political force in Ukraine

This was not really true before the election, and is now clearly wrong.

The Communist faction in the new Ukrainian parliament will be one of the smallest in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The party will have just 15% of the seats in 450-member chamber - compared to 25% in the previous one.

Contrast this with Ukraine's neighbour Moldova, which has been badly run by a Communist parliament, government and president for over a year.

Myth 5: Ukraine is divided between nationalist regions in the west, and pro-Russian regions in the east

Elections from 1991 to 1998 did indeed show up such a divide. But the 1999 presidential election was won by Mr Kuchma on pro-European ticket with strong support from western Ukraine, and a reasonable level of support from central and eastern Ukraine too.

This time, Mr Yushchenko's Our Ukraine alliance has gone some way towards repeating Mr Kuchma's 1999 achievement, with good results in the west, and some success in the central and north-eastern part of Ukraine.

Our Ukraine won 15 of the country's 24 regions - some of them quite remote from the nationalists' western heartlands. Of five Ukrainian regions on the Russian border Mr Yushchenko's bloc won two, plus four more regions on the border with Belarus.

Myth 6: The election was won (a) by Russia (b) by the pro-Western / pro-American Our Ukraine alliance

Both ideas are untrue.

Moscow-based commentators have noted that three parties endorsed by the Kremlin - the pro-presidential For United Ukraine, the Communists and Social-Democrats - picked up nearly 200 of the parliament's 450 seats.

But that fails to reflect the pro-EU orientation of the president's bloc, and the fact that the Communists have recently been toning down their pro-Russian rhetoric.

The Social Democrats, meanwhile, sought to bolster their image with television advertisements underlining the success of social democratic parties in the EU.

Mr Yushchenko's pro-westernism is also easily exaggerated - his bloc's list of candidates includes many self-made businessmen with commercial interests in Russia.

Mr Yushchenko himself has never said anything bad about Russia, the Russian language or the ethnic Russian community in Ukraine.

His campaign advertisements widely featured him with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his current employment is as director of the Russian-Ukrainian Management Institute.