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Deputy Director of the IWP Kateryna Zarembo for EUobserverOn May 25 Ukrainians will cast their votes for the new President. Is there any difference between the upcoming elections and all that we have witnessed so far?\
In the first place, this is an unprecedented situation that noone from the incumbent top officials is running. In fact, six months ago it would have been unfathomable. It would have been equally hard to conceive that the leaders of the biggest oppositional forces – Arseniy Yatseniuk and Vitaliy Klytschko – would not compete for the presidential seat. At the moment Yatseniuk is superceded by Yulia Tymoshenko, whose reputation, as opposed to that of Yatseniuk, is a lot more tarnished, and Klytschko is running for Kyiv’s mayor.

Secondly, these elections promise to be if not free and fair but at least with significantly smaller amount of violations, simply because the administrative resource, traditionally usurped by the candidates in power at the moment of the elections, is exhausted.

Thirdly, these elections see some candidates who not only wouldn’t have been expected some year ago but also would hardly have expected themselves to run as well. Moreover, some of these candidates can well expect to beat the «psychological barrier» of 4%. Some of them arose during the Euromaidan – for instance, Olha Bogomolets, a well-known doctor, scholar, civil activist and singer, who operated a medical point during the Euromaidan revolution and therefore boosted her popularity substantially. She also made a claim that the registration pledge of 2,5 mln UAH had been collected by means of open public donations, which, if true, signifies substantial popular support and understanding of democratic tradition by the candidate.

Finally, for the first time in the history of independent Ukraine the presidential elections will not take place on all of its territory, given the occupied Crimean peninsula. The elections will likely be sabotaged at the numerous constituencies in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which will make them undoubtedly more tense.