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270 Ukrainian settlements to elect local authorities with presidential polls on May 25

KIEV, April 23. /ITAR-TASS/. A total of 270 Ukrainian settlements , including its capital city Kiev, will hold early elections of local authorities on May 25, along with the early presidential polls, chairman of the Ukrainian Central Election Commission Mikhail Okhendovsky said on Tuesday.

Apart from that, the city of Ivano-Frankovsk will hold mid-term elections of a member of the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament).

“It means that local election commission will have a lot of difficult work,” he said, adding that the current developments in Ukraine “put the organizers and electoral subjects in unprecedentedly hard conditions.” He stressed that in such conditions it was necessary to be “particularly attentive” to the current election laws.

The Central Elections Commission has registered 23 candidates for Ukrainian president, who represent all the shades of the Ukrainian political spectrum. Nine registered candidates were nominated by political parties. Thus, former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko was nominated by the Batkivshchina (Fatherland) party, former Defence Minister Anatoly Gritsenko - by the Civil Position party, former Minister of Revenues and Dues Alexander Klimenko - by the Ukrainian People’s Party, former Minister of Social Policy Natalia Korolevskaya - by the Ukraine-Forward party, Vasily Kuibida - by the People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), Oleg Lyashko - by the Radical Party, Petr Simonenko - by the Ukrainian Communist Party, Oleg Tyagnibok - by the Svoboda (Freedom) party, and Dmitry Yarosh - by the radical organization Right Sector. Other candidates, including oligarch Petr Porochenko, are self-nominees. Proroshenko, however, can count on the support from Vitali Klitschko’s UDAR party, and Mikhail Dobkin is backed by the Party of Regions.

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