You're reading: Postponement of local election date profitable to all political parties, says political scientist

The cancellation of the parliament's decision to hold local elections on May 30, 2010 was made in the political interests of the leading political parties and blocs, a Ukrainian political scientist has said."There were a lot of arguments that these elections should have been cancelled, and the last argument was the impossibility of financing [the elections] with the absence of funds," Director of the Kyiv Center for Political and Conflict Studies Mykhailo Pohrebynsky said at a press conference on Wednesday.

He said that the holding of elections to the local councils on May 30 would have become "a disaster" for the Bloc of Lytvyn "as they would have failed to win the desired and sufficient number of representatives on local councils."

He said that there had been two options for the Regions Party. The first foresaw, in the light of victory in the presidential election, the need to "hold these elections quickly and significantly reformat the staff of local government agencies." The second envisaged the need to wait for the appointment of regional governors and then "reformat the local authorities."

He also said that for the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, the holding of local elections on May 30 would have been a chance to take revenge after defeat in the presidential election.