Campaigning In Early Mayoral And Municipal Council Elections Starts In Kyiv

Campaigning for early mayoral and municipal council elections has started in Kyiv.

This is indicated in the calendar plan of measures for preparation for and conduct of early elections in Kyiv that the Kyiv municipal election commission approved.

According to the plan, nomination of candidates for the post of mayor and deputies of the Kyiv municipal council (self-nomination or nomination at congresses of political parties) and submission of documents to the election commission for registration should take place from March 26 to April 15.

Moreover, the municipal election commission should issue forms for collection of signatures to representatives of candidates.

Mayoral candidates need to collect more than 300 signatures of voters while political parties and blocs need to collect over 800.

The municipal election commission is to make a decision on registration of mayoral candidates within five days of receiving their registration documents (three days for candidates for election into the municipal council).

Moreover, political parties are to inform the municipal election commission about creation of blocs for contesting the Kyiv municipal council elections by April 9 and they can dissolve such bloc by April 14 without the individual member-parties of the blocs losing the right to participate in the elections on their own.

After the period of registration of candidates, the municipal election commission is to publish the list of all candidates and information about them, including the first five names on lists of candidates for election into the municipal council, in the mass media.

By April 19, the municipal election commission is to hold a draw to determine the order in which the names of political parties will be listed on ballot papers, distribution of airtime among candidates, and formation of polling-station election commissions.

By April 22, the municipal election commission is to send lists of candidates to polling-station election commissions.

Candidates are to start their election campaigns from the moment of their registration by the municipal election commission and stop campaigning at 23:59 on May 23.

The municipal election commission is to print ballot papers by May 16 and start delivering them to polling-station election commissions from May 22.

Incumbent Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi and the Vitalii Klychko Bloc`s leader Vitalii Klychko have already announced their decisions to nominate themselves as candidates for the mayoral elections while Parliamentary Deputy Viktor Pylypyshyn of the Lytvyn Bloc has announced his intention to do so.

Former Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko (who is now a parliamentary deputy), Parliamentary Deputy Mykola Tomenko of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc have said that do not intend to contest the mayoral elections.

Moreover, Valerii Asadchev (who was a mayoral candidate for the Kostenko & Pliusch Bloc in the 2006 Kyiv mayoral elections) and Volodymyr Marchenko (the candidate from the Progressive Socialist Party) have also said that they do not intend to participate in the mayoral elections.

Meanwhile, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Our Ukraine-People`s Self-Defense bloc are holding talks on nomination of a joint candidate for the mayoral elections.

Center-left political forces are also discussing the possibility of nominating a single candidate for the mayoral elections.

The parliament scheduled early elections of the Kyiv mayor and deputies of the Kyiv municipal council for May 25.

Chernovetskyi won 457,887 votes in the March 2006 mayoral elections in Kyiv (31.83% of the total number of votes), followed by Vitalii Klychko with 341,249 (23.7%) and Omelchenko with 305,363 (21.2%).

In total, 37 candidates and 54 political parties and blocs participated in the 2006 mayoral elections.

(www.ukranews.com)