Polling stations opened at 08:00 (05:00 GMT) in Kiev and all over Ukraine for the snap parliamentary elections on Sunday. Voting will continue until 20:00 (17:00 GMT), Ukrainian media reports.
At the polling stations, Ukrainians receive two ballots, one for the party and one for the candidate in the local constituency. More than 3,000 candidates and 22 parties have been registered for the ongoing snap elections, following the voting results 225 candidates will be elected from the parties that receive over 5 percent of the vote.
The ‘Servant of the People’ Party, which incumbent Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a member of, is on the list of registered parties along with the ‘Voice’ Party headed by the front man of the band ‘Okean Elzy,’ Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, Poroshenko’s ‘European Solidarity’ and the All-Ukrainian Union “Fatherland” of former prime-minister Yuliya Timoshenko. Nearly 1,700 international observers and 132,000 police officers are going to observe the elections.
Parliamentary elections were to be held in September this year, but the newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the dissolution of parliament while speaking at his inauguration ceremony on May 20 and several days later scheduled snap parliamentary elections on July 21.