CVU believes the elections passed in a generally free and competitive atmosphere however it recorded a considerable number of procedural and technical problems linked with the flaws in electoral legislation and other issues

International Observer, Brian Mefford, alleges quarter of a million extra ballot papers in Odessa. Director of the Agency for Modelling Situations, Oleksy Holubutsky, asserts that the issue of election rigging via extra ballot papers is being used both by the opposition and the government

There had been vehement protest over the behaviour of the TEC which had formed the PEC without any openness, with the minimum number of members and virtually excluding representatives of a number of parties.

The Kherson Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] reports an unprecedented and unacceptable degree of pressure on participants in the elections for Kherson Mayor and Deputies to the City Council.

According to Oleksandr Chernenko, Head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine a lot of the abuses during the election campaign are formally within the law, as per the disastrous law on the local elections passed this year

According to various public opinion surveys, between 44 and 60 percent of voters say that vote-rigging is possible while the number prepared to sell their vote is rising each year.

The Batkivshchyna Party says an elderly woman campaigning for it was beaten by two masked men in Kharkiv on October 19,

The scandal over the formation of the Lviv Territorial Electoral Commission [TEC] is into its third day. Most political parties In Lviv are demanding that it be changed and have even taken their demands to the Lviv Administrative District Court

It was announced on Wednesday that the European Parliament has adopted a decision to send a delegation to Ukraine to follow the 31 October local elections

The Lviv City Electoral Commission has not included on precinct electoral commissions representatives of the main opposition parties or representatives of the city’s Mayor, Andriy Sadovy.

The Commission approved lists of members of precinct electoral commissions without indicating who put their names forward, or their party affiliation and supposedly on the recommendation of a working group whose names have not been revealed

In Simferopol 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 local elections this year will also be distinguished by the large number of ballot papers that each voter receives. This, as well as the lack of proper protection of the blank forms, could lead to rigging during the elections

Two Deputy Heads of the Central Election Commission have publicly stated that the very legitimacy of the local elections is at risk. They speak of widespread cases of unfounded refusals to register candidates

On 12 October in Trostyanka (Sumy oblast) a member of the Territorial Electoral Commission [TEC] changed the leadership of the city commission in favour of pro-ruling coalition parties

Andriy Kohut from the Civic Assembly of Ukraine reports that the parties in power are building their election campaign with the use of administrative resources and methods involving the enforcement and regulatory bodies

President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek believes that the European Parliament will decide on Thursday to send a monitoring mission to the local elections in Ukraine

The delegation is very concerned by reports of harassment of civic activists by security services as well as multiple, credible allegations of government intimidation of candidates. Another significant concern is the potential for abuse of discretion by electoral commissioners

Practice showed up failings of the electoral legislation which were interpreted by electoral commissions without consistency this leading to numerous political accusations and appeals to the courts

“Clearly when a political force which has the support of at least a fifth of the region’s population is not allowed to join the election campaign, it is hardly appropriate to talk of the elections being objective and likely to reflect the will of the Lviv region’s residents”