Moroz cites obstacles to campaign (06/13/99)

Moroz cites obstacles to campaign

RFE/RL Newsline

KYIV - Oleksander Moroz, head of the Ukrainian Socialist Party and a presidential hopeful, has accused the authorities of blocking his presidential campaign, the Associated Press reported on June 7.

Mr. Moroz said the Central Election Committee (CEC) is refusing to give him forms to collect the required signatures supporting his candidacy. "We are facing a deliberate and planned campaign aimed at preventing my participation in the elections," the agency quoted Mr. Moroz as saying.

The same day the Supreme Court began considering Mr. Moroz's complaint that he has received only 110,000 forms, instead of the necessary 260,000. "I know that the strategy of [President Leonid] Kuchma's present team is to prevent me from registering [as a presidential candidate]," Mr. Moroz was quoted as saying in the June 5 issue of Zerkalo Nedeli.

The Supreme Court on June 8 ordered the CEC to issue another 150,000 voter registration forms to the candidate. The candidates registered to run in the October 31 presidential elections must use such forms to collect at least 1 million signatures by July 13 in support of their candidacies.

Electoral officials said they will fulfill the court decision, although, according to the Associated Press, one of them, Viktor Alsufiev, commented that the court "allowed itself to be dragged into political games." Mr. Alsufiev noted that the court earlier had refused to give more registration forms to President Leonid Kuchma and Hennadii Udovenko, the candidate from Rukh.

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