Simferopol protest against likely rigging of local elections

In Simferopol in the Crimea a demonstration has taken place by various political forces calling on Crimean residents to prevent possible rigging of the local elections by the Party of the Regions.

The range of parties was wide, including Batkivshchyna (Tymoshenko), the Communist Party and others.  Around one thousand people took part, and passed a joint statement in which they claimed that the management of the Party of the Regions “had launched a widespread criminal campaign to deprive the people of their right of choice”.

The statement claims that the authorities did everything to distort electoral legislation to please the Party of the Regions and to manage through administrative resources to guarantee the result needed.  It states that the same party has cheated in order to form electoral commissions from its supporters and “has in this way totally taken under its control the printing of voting papers and vote count. The regime is deliberately leading the country to total rigging of the results of the local elections.”

They claim that the Party of the Regions people in the enforcement bodies are putting people behind bars simply for trying to put forward candidates from other parties.

This is an abridged version of the allegations from http://interfax.com.ua/ukr/main/50987/   since there are no specific details, however the number of widely different parties joining together is unusual and there are a number of other reports indicating concerns over the coming elections in the Crimea (and throughout Ukraine)