UKRAINE CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT BEGIN CAMPAIGNING
Most of 26 candidates for president have gone barnstorming in regions.
One of the aspirants, Prime Ministrer Viktor Yanukovich, flew to Athens to attend the opening of the 28th Olympic games.
One of the loudest statements by candidates was the promise of Viktor Yushchenko, the leader of centre right bloc Our Ukraine, to withdraw Ukraine’s contingent from Iraq should he be elected as president.
The matter has been repeatedly raised in parliament, but the motion did not pass because of refusal of Our Ukraine faction to vote for the pullout of Ukrainian peacekeepers.
The Communist party’s candidate Pyotr Simonenko proposed to the leader of the Socialist party, Alexander Moroz, to be prime minister in case of the victory in the elections.
The country’s Communist number one thus does not conceal a possibility of a leftist alliance, but observers doubt this.
Experts are sure that main players in the elections will be Yanukovich, Yushchenko, Simonenko and Moroz.
Other 22 candidates are not taken seriously.
According to the central election commission, the campaign of every candidate will cost the state budget 412,000 grivnas (about 80,000 dollars).
October 29 ends campaigns.
If no candidate gets 50 percent of votes plus one vote on October 31, the second round of the elections will be held on November 14.
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