The actions of those in power regarding criminal prosecutions against Left Bank [LB.ua] and TVi show that they don’t need independent media, particularly with the upcoming parliamentary elections.

The election watchdog OPORA notes that since 18 July pensioners in Luhansk have been receiving food parcels from potential parliamentary candidate from single-mandate electoral district No. 109 Volodymyr Medyanik

Iryna Chupivska and Viktoria Syumar from the Institute for Mass Information write that the elections are already underway, as can be seen by widespread bribery of voters through various gifts and “social initiatives”, as well as in the covert advertising in the media

The Mayor of Donetsk Oleksandr Lukyanenko has announced that named Party of the Regions MPs will be financing the gifts for first year school students Day of Knowledge which the City Council gives out each year

Election monitors report that on 19 July tax police carried out a search of the real estate firm Yarud Nerukhomist which bellows to the family of the head of the Mariupol branch of the Batkivshchyna Party, Oleksandr Yaroshenko.

Committee of Voters of Ukraine long-term observers have drawn up a map plotting out infringements during the election campaign in single-mandate electoral districts of the Kherson region

The logic behind division of electoral districts has led to some in the Kherson region covering an area larger than Lebanon or Luxembourg, making the scope for electoral infringements huge

The opposition believe that the employment of 299 people to implement the government’s “social initiatives” is for the aim of election campaigning at the public’s expense

The Luhansk Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine views the sentence passed on 17 July against Volodymyr Struk to be politically motivated. Its real aim is to prevent a popular politician from taking part in the parliamentary elections

As reported, on 13 March the State Broadcasting Committee sent a letter to regional TRC telling them as a matter of urgency to broadcast special programmes from 15 March explaining President Yanukovych’s “social initiatives”.

Dementiy Bily, member of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] and Editor of the Kherson CVU newspaper Vilny Vybir [Free Choice] was on 13 July refused accreditation to cover the Kherson regional Party of the Regions conference.

The police officers say that the search is aimed at identifying and removing money obtained by criminal means. They had no search warrant.

The proposed video surveillance at polling stations cannot be a serious impediment to infringements during the parliamentary elections both because of the the lack of specific detail in the law, and the technical parameters of the proposed system

OPORA reports that food parcels are being handed out by a Party of the Regions candidate from State schools in the area, and with recipients invited to sign a letter to the President asking for Russian to be made an official State language

Anatoly Tiora, correspondent of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] Odessa regional publication IzbirKom, believes that the two men who hurled four Molotov cocktails at his home in Kotovsk planned to burn the house down, together with its inhabitants

OPORA warns that administrative resources are being used by certain potential electoral players in order to artificially reduce the level of political competition in the country

The Luhansk Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] sees the most negative trend in June to be an increase in the number of cases of interference by the police in the activities of likely parliamentary election candidates

One of the core democratic values which the civic campaign CHESNO is insisting on is personal voting by MPs. It is receiving considerable opposition across the party divide in a parliament where at least one billionaire MP has not voted in person for at least two years

The head of a Severodonetsk NGO and likely candidate in this year’s parliamentary elections has no intention of attending a court which has no jurisdiction over her case and stresses that the Prosecutor has ample evidence of falsification of the case against her

Politicians are proving lavish with all kinds of goodies even before the election campaign begins. The Luhansk Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine is closely scrutinizing these and other activities