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

The Luhansk Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine reports that some State institutions are using their administrative resources and public funding to try to influence voters in favour of particular candidates in single-mandate electoral districts

Olha Aivazovska, Head of the Civic Movement OPORA states clearly that although it is not bribery until the election campaign formally begins for potential parliamentary candidates to hand out gifts, food etc, it does infringe the standards for honest elections

The Deputy Head of the Central Election Commission [CEC] has told Radio Svoboda that if certain amendments to the Law on the Parliamentary Elections are not made, the results could be questioned in the courts

TheProsecutor General’s Office reports that the Rubizhne Prosecutor has applied to have the restraint measure against human rights activist Rimma Bilotserkivska changed to one not involving remand in custody

US journalist Zenon Zawada says that for the first time in 7 years he is extremely concerned over the issue of personal safety, and even feels some fear since he sees all the signs that the coming elections will be hard and brutal.

Rimma Bilotserkivska who has an arrest warrant from 22 May hanging over her is not the criminal type. Nor is she in hiding which was effectively the “justification” for the latest court absurdity in a seemingly endless flow. The story is Kafkaesque, the order for her arrest all too real.

A survey in Kherson and Tsyurupynsk has found that the majority system used during the 2010 Local Elections has not achieved any greater connection between deputies and their voters although the results are still considerably better than in Donetsk .

Zahid Krasnov, the Dnipropetrovsk politician and businessman who is planning to stand for parliament this year had spent a week in detention. The criminal case terminated in 2009 has been opened at the instigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine believes that the examples presented demonstrate lack of will to run the elections in honest manner and already now raise question marks as to the legitimacy of the 28 October parliamentary elections.

In Dnipropetrovsk well-known politician, leader of the NGO Hromadska Syla and businessman, Zahid Krasnov has been arrested over an accident which took place four years ago. He is understood to be planning to stand in October’s parliamentary elections

Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] Oleksandr Chernenko considers the highly dubious divisions of electoral districts in some oblasts, the widespread corruption expected during the 2012 parliamentary elections because of the mixed single-mandate / party list system and more

As reported, in 2 major oblasts – Luhansk and Donetsk – the division has elicited concern that political considerations dictated the sometimes bizarre and illogical carving up of parts of the two regions

Not only could the Central Election Commission’s Resolution No. 82 make observing the elections in two major regions – the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts – more difficult, but it could also render observing in those regions a formality

With electoral districts as formed by the Central Election Commission on 28 April requiring ballot papers to be transported from local precincts to the district commission via other electoral districts, it is difficult not to suspect that political considerations were at play.

“Of concern are cases where one sees political motives in the creation of electoral districts with atypical configuration - where the formation of the district coincides with the previous political activeness of a candidate, or on the contrary, where a territory is unexpectedly split up where for a long time a candidate with high rating had been working”.

The Luhansk Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] reports that the Central Election Commission’s Resolution No. 82 on single-mandate electoral districts breaks all records for absurdity and puts a question mark over the election process in the Luhansk region

The fact that the Constitutional Court’s judgement has restricted the electoral rights of over 450 thousand Ukrainians abroad will elicit criticism of the coming elections, or even their being declared illegitimate

In a campaign entitled “Filter the Verkhovna Rada”, over 500 NGOs who form part of the CHESNO movement are urging Ukraine’s leading political forces to consult with them in formulating future party candidate lists and putting forward candidates in single-mandate constituencies.