Ukrainian opposition to challenge local election results

The Ukrainian People's Party led by Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn will go to court over alleged violations in recent local elections, a party functionary said on Monday.

Some of the party candidates "were arbitrarily struck off the ballot without warning" in Sunday's elections, Oleh Zarubinskiy, deputy chairman of the party, said, RIA Novosti reported.

The results of the elections are to be officially announced on November 6.

The opposition Batkivshchyna party said there were massive violations at 32,000 polling stations across the country and is demanding the rerun of local elections in the Kiev and Lvov regions, the Ukrainian top opposition lawmaker said on Monday.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions was victorious in the polls, gaining 36.2 percent of the vote, according to exit polls. The opposition Batkyvshchina (Fatherland) party led by ex-premier and Yanukovych's bitter rival Yulia Tymoshenko came second with 13.1 percent.

The opposition claimed mass violations during the elections, saying that from 20 to 30 percent of polling stations across Ukraine had not opened on time.

"We are registering today a request to declare the results of the elections to the Kiev and Lvov regional councils, as well as to the Ternopol City Council, invalid," Andrei Kozhemyakin, who heads the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc-Batkyvshchina faction, said during a meeting with leaders of other factions.

He added that the results of the polls had been "totally distorted as a result of falsifications."

Observers recorded minor infringements but said the elections were generally transparent and conformed to democratic standards. The Ukrainian authorities and the Commonwealth of Independent States' Inter-Parliamentary Assembly said the elections took place without major violations. 

Kozhemyakin also said his faction, which holds 121 seats in the 450-strong parliament, planned to push for the creation of a temporary committee to investigate the violations.