Minor incidents as Ukrainians vote in local elections

Oct 31, 2010, 13:44 GMT

Kiev - Ukrainians went to polls Sunday in nationwide elections for mayors and regional councils.

The pro-government Party of Regions was expected to increase its hold over city halls and provincial legislatures in the central and northern areas, according to pre-election surveys.

Polling sites opened on schedule at 8 am, with voting set to run through 10 pm to accommodate the 36 million registered voters.

Voting generally ran smoothly throughout the morning, but reports of glitches and difficulties at scattered locations across the country were increasing by midday.

A brawl broke out at a polling site in the northern Sumy region when a voter attempted to walk home with a handful of ballots, and threw punches when election officials tried to stop him. Police broke up the conflict.

A monitor for the opposition Motherland party reported seeing ballot stuffing at a polling site in the eastern city Kharkiv. Election officials were investigating the allegation.

Long queues were reported at polling sites in the Black Sea port city Odessa, where voters were to choose from 52 political parties and 15 candidates in the country's tensest mayoral race.

Dozens of residents of a village in the eastern Zaporizhia region blocked the opening of the town polling site to protest the removal of a popular mayor from ballots by the local voting council.

Opposition parties prior to the election accused Party of Regions of planning to manipulate vote counts, as most of the 33,000 regional voting councils are run by Regions' staff.

Government officials also were intending to force persons staying in prisons, hospitals, military units and mental institutions to vote for Party of Regions, opposition officials claimed.

President Viktor Yanukovych declared his support for free and open elections, and promised prosecution of anyone attempting to fix vote results.

Some 2,500 independent observers, 491 of them from abroad, were on hand to monitor the vote.

Exit polls were planned in most major cities, as well two nationwide surveys.