The submission to the Central Election Commission (CEC) of documents for the registration of candidates for president of Ukraine in early presidential elections has ended.
The deadline expired at midnight, and 24 candidates expressed their desire to compete for the presidency, including seven of them already registered as presidential candidates.
Former First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin was the first to express his desire to participate in the presidential race. The commission registered him as a self-nominee.
The list of self-nominated candidates, already registered as candidates, also includes former Deputy Prime Minister Yuriy Boiko, Party of Regions MP Sergiy Tigipko, and former Head of Kharkiv Regional State Administration Mykhailo Dobkin, whom the Party of Regions nominated as a candidate for president at a congress on March 29.
The CEC also registered self-nominated Head of the Ukrainian Jewish Congress Vadym Rabynovych as a presidential candidate.
In addition, the commission registered former MP Valeriy Konovaliuk and Kyiv businessman Volodymyr Saranov. Konovaliuk is a former Party of Regions MP who quit the party and resigned as a presidential advisor because of disagreement with the policy pursued by the authorities.
Thus, the CEC has yet to consider documents from 17 candidates, among them Batkivschyna leader Yulia Tymoshenko, Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok, Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, Civil Position Party leader Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Ukrainian People’s Party leader Oleksandr Klymenko, People’s Movement of Ukraine leader Vasyl Kuibida, and Radical Party leader Oleh Liashko, who all were nominated at party congresses.
UDAR Party leader Vitali Klitschko refused to participate in the presidential elections in favor of well-known Ukrainian businessman Petro Poroshenko, who, according to opinion polls, is leading in the presidential race. At the same time, Klitschko plans to compete for the post of Kyiv mayor in the elections that will take place simultaneously with presidential elections, on May 25.
Although Poroshenko’s candidacy was supported at an UDAR congress, he is running for president as a self-nominee and filed a full package of documents to the CEC for registration as a candidate.
The commission is also to consider documents from self-nominated candidates, in particular, Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsariov, former Head of the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service Mykola Malomuzh, former Social Policy Minister Natalia Korolevska, former Head of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine Vasyl Tsushko, Maidan activists Olha Bohomolets and Zorian Shkiriak, a nominee from the Internet Party of Ukraine, Darth Vader, and Kharkiv businessman Andriy Hrynenko.
Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh will also participate in the elections. Although he, according to media reports, was nominated as a presidential candidate at a party congress, he is running as a self-nominee.
The election campaign began on February 25. According to the schedule published on the CEC Web site, the registration of candidates for president of Ukraine will last until April 4 inclusive.
Presidential elections in Ukraine are scheduled for May 25.
