KIEV, October 25 (Itar-Tass) — All convicts and those kept under arrest in Ukraine will be able to vote at the Ukrainian parliamentary elections on Sunday, October 28, the Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service pledged. Some 146,000 prisoners will vote at the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, the republican State Penitentiary Service reported. “Special polling stations were set up at all 180 penitentiaries and reprimand prisons that makes it possible for all convicts, those kept under arrest and the voters included in the lists of voters at the relevant polling stations to exercise their suffrage,” the press service of the Ukrainian State Penitentiary Service reported. The service reported that the district election committees were formed at each special polling station. The district election committees include over 3,500 people.
This time two former VIP persons – the leader of the opposition and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko will vote at the penitentiaries. These two well-known politicians intended to run themselves at the parliamentary elections, but they were denied the participation in the elections, because they are imprisoned. Timoshenko is expected to vote at the Kharkov clinical hospital number five. She was brought to the hospital on May 9 from the Kachanovo penitentiary outside Kharkov, where she is serving a 7-year term in prison for the abuse of powers in the signing of the gas contracts with Russia in 2009. Lutsenko will be brought to a polling station at the Menskaya penitentiary in the Chernigov Region. Last February he was sentenced to four years in prison for the abuse of his powers and the misappropriation of the funds allocated for the celebrations of Police Day in 2008-2009.