Ukraine will choose the new Parliament today

The next parliamentary elections will be held in Ukraine today, on 28 October 2012, when Ukrainian citizens nationwide and also living abroad will head to the polling stations to make their choice for the new members of Parliament.

The polling stations all over the country will be open since 8 a.m. till 9 p.m. local time on the whole territory of the state.

The new parliamentarians will be elected with the mixed voting system which was proposed with the new election law this year. According to this system half of the seats in the Parliament (225 seats) will be elected with the party system (the party lists), and another half of the seats (also 225 places) will go to the candidates from the single-mandate majoritarian districts. The majoritarian candidates could either represent some political parties or run independently.

There are 21 political parties and different forces represented in the elections. In order to win the seats in the next parliament the party should receive at least 5% of the votes.

Apparently the special system of video observing of the electoral process on the each polling station has already started its work. According to the official statements every citizens will be able to observe the process of voting on the specific voting station. The cameras have been bought by the authorities for better controlling of the electoral process and in attempt to demonstrate the fairness and transparency of the upcoming elections. But some observers and specialists and also the oppositional representatives have some concerns that those cameras won’t document the following process of the votes’ counting where the numerous violations were expected to take place.

Meanwhile 3797 international observers were registered for examining and observing the electoral process on 28 October. There will be also several local observers.

As it was reported earlier, five exit-polls will be conducted on the day of elections. Thus the joint exit-poll will be held by Kyiv International Sociology Institute, Razumkov Center and Democratic Initiatives. In addition to that the sociological companies SOCIS and TNS will also conduct their own exit-polls which were ordered by some prominent Ukrainian TV-channels (Inter Channel and ICTV). The well-known pro-opposition 5 Channel has also requested for the conducting of its own exit-poll, and the company Rating Group will be responsible for this poll. Pro-government channel Ukraine is expected to have its exit-polls too. Another exit-poll will be conducted due to the initiative of the Savik Shuster Studio (Savik Shuster is a prominent media figure).