COURT DECLARES KYIV MAYORAL ELECTIONS VOID. The district court in Vyshhorod, Kyiv Oblast, has annulled the results of the Kyiv mayoral elections on 30 May (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 1 June 1999). The court, which was responding to an appeal by two losing candidates, Hryhoriy Surkis and Mykola Hrabar, found various violations in the campaign, including financial irregularities and the lack of media access for candidates other than the winner, Oleksandr Omelchenko. Omelchenko scored a landslide victory with 76.5 percent of the vote , while Surkis gained 16.5 percent. President Leonid Kuchma blasted the court decision saying through a spokesman that it "trampled the will of thousands of Kyiv voters," AP reported. JM

UKRAINIAN MINERS STAGE PROTEST MARCHES. Some 1,000 miners' wives and children began a protest march on 22 July from Krasnodon, Luhansk Oblast, to the oblast center 40 kilometers away, to demand back wages for their husbands and fathers. Meanwhile, hundreds of miners from the Krasnodon area continued their protest march, which was begun earlier this month, to Kyiv, some 800 kilometers from Krasnodon. Official reports say Ukrainian miners are owed a total of 1.9 billion hryvni ($478 million). JM

POLLS SAY KUCHMA LEADS IN PRESIDENTIAL RACE. A poll conducted last week by the independent Institute of Social Research and Socis-Gallup said 18 percent of respondents plan to vote for the incumbent in the October presidential elections. Progressive Socialist Party leader Natalya Vitrenko has 15 percent backing and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko 12 percent. A recent poll conducted by the Academy of Sciences' Sociology institute found that Kuchma is supported by 21.8 percent of respondents, Vitrenko 17.9 percent, and Symonenko 14.8 percent. JM