KYIV, Ukraine, September 20 /PRNewswire/ --     While the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine are just
about to enter the finishing straight, the favourites in the race were
already determined some time ago.

All polls reveal that the Party of Regions - the party
delivering the foundation of today's ruling coalition - is clearly ahead.

Recent studies indicate that the Party of Regions is on course
to repeat last year's success and is likely to even outperform it by winning
about 33 to 35% of the votes. The Bloc Yulia Timoshenko (BYT) is lagging more
than 10% behind, and the pro-presidential political group "Our Ukraine -
People's Self-Defense" (OU - PSD), which is headed by the former minister of
the interior Yuri Lutsenko, is heading for a safe third place. Most analysts
are unanimous that the fourth party to enter parliament will be the Communist
Party, which is predicted to receive 3 to 5% of votes. The remaining
participants (among them the bloc of former chairman of parliament V. Lytvyn
and the Socialist Party of current chairman O. Moroz) are currently ranging
in the "danger zone".

Forecasts suggest that the Party of Regions will clearly
dominate the elections, thereby gaining the basis to repeatedly participate
in the formation of ruling coalitions and that the party's chairman Viktor
Yanukovich will continue to serve as the country's prime minister.

Meanwhile, the early elections are being held on an obviously
insufficient and at times even frankly questionable legal basis. The
underlying resolutions obviously have a political rather than a
constitutional character. The elections became possible as a result of a
situational compromise reached between the principal political forces, above
all between the Coalition of National Unity, on the one hand, and the
president and the united opposition, on the other.

It is common knowledge that the resources of the Ukrainian
administration are deployed in the electoral race. Against the background of
the artificially initiated parliamentary crisis, the Council of National
Security and Defence as part of the presidential administration began to
high-handedly take over many government functions. Additionally, since May,
the president and the people associated with him have actually been blocking
the activities of the Constitutional Court that would have been able to act
as arbitrator in the complex crisis.

In many regions, the heads of the regional and district
administrations were also appointed heads of the electoral committees of the
president's bloc, raising justified doubts concerning the legality and
transparency of the elections in the regions headed by loyal and dependent
followers of the president.

Contact:

    Mr. Kozhara A. Leonid
    Member of the Parliament of Ukraine
    Kyiv, Ukraine
    Phone: +38-044-255-35-65
    +38-044-255-23-42
    Mobile: +38-063-183-85-30
    e-mail: kozhara_l@rada.gov.ua