Candidate shot on eve of Ukraine poll

Ukrainians go to the polls on Sunday

A candidate in Ukraine's parliamentary elections has been murdered in what investigators say is a political assassination one day before polls open on Sunday.

Mykola Shkriblyak, deputy governor of the Ivano-Frankovsk region, was shot in the back as he returned home on Friday evening and died in hospital on Saturday.

Our only version of events is a political murder linked to the elections

Bogdan Yarysh
Ivano-Frankovsk administration

The killing comes as the election campaign enters its final phase, with candidates now barred from making further appeals to voters.

Thirty-three parties and electoral blocks are vying for a place in parliament in an election which is seen as a dry-run for the incumbent Leonid Kuchma's chances in presidential elections in 2004.

"[Mr Shkriblyak] was shot in the back from an automatic weapon on the second or third floor of his apartment building," said Bogdan Yarysh, spokesman for the Ivano-Frankovsk administration.

He was taken to hospital but died there of his injuries.

The vote is seen as a key test of President Leonid Kuchma's popularity

"Our only version of events is a political murder linked to the elections," Mr Yarysh said.

Mr Shkriblyak was standing as a social democratic candidate in the Nadvirnyanskyy constituency.

The main battle in the elections is between the supporters of President Kuchma, and an alliance of opposition movements led by the former Prime Minister, Viktor Yushchenko.

Concerns about fairness

Opinion polls show Mr Yushchenko's block, Our Ukraine, is far ahead of the pro-presidential Coalition for a United Ukraine.

It is even said to look like deposing the communists from their pedestal of the largest single parliamentary faction.

But the two-tier ballot procedure may offset Mr Yushchenko's success in the party lists contests, by giving more seats to the presidential supporters in the single candidate constituencies.

Concerns about the fairness of the elections have brought in almost 8,000 foreign monitors, both from the West and the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The elections could be a chance for the opposition to instigate reforms

Some opposition politicians say they are prepared to boycott the new parliament if the vote is heavily rigged in favour of Mr Kuchma's allies.

But international monitors say this campaign, the third in the 10 years since independence, is an improvement on the previous two thanks to clearer laws, and the ability to contest Election Commission rulings.