Ukraine's opposition convenes to name candidates for Oct. 28 election

Ukraine's ex-Prime Minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna Party, Yulia Tymoshenko, who is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for abuse of office for signing the 2009 gas contracts with Russia, was chosen to head the closed party list of her party for parliamentary elections scheduled to take place on Oct. 28.
Several hundred delegates voted for the decision during the party congress on July 30 in a small courtyard of the party's headquarters in Kyiv.
In the top five on the list is also Arseniy Yatseniuk of Front of Changes party, Anatoliy Hrytsenko, leader of the Civil Position party, Oleksandr Turchynov, deputy head of the Batkivshchyna party, and jailed ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko. His wife Iryna is number 18 on the list.
The party party assembly one hour as Turchynov rushed through the list of candidates. The delegates also approved the list of party's candidates to run in single mandate districts.
Two lawmakers in the Tymoshenko's faction in the parliament, Serhiy Mishchenko and Vadym Korotiuk, left the faction after they found out that they were put at the bottom of the party list of candidates, which are not likely to make it into the parliament.