UKRAINIAN LEFTISTS HOLD SEPARATE MAY DAY RALLIES IN KYIV... Some 2,500 people took part in a May Day demonstration organized in the Ukrainian capital by the Communist Party and the Peasant Party. Communist leader Petro Symonenko called on Ukrainian workers to unite in the struggle against "the capitalist system that destroys Ukraine's people, statehood, and future," Interfax reported. Some 4,000 people participated in May Day celebrations organized by the Social Democratic Party (United). And a third leftist rally to mark May Day in Kyiv was organized by the Progressive Socialist Party led by Natalya Vitrenko. The 500-strong rally adopted a resolution calling on the government to break all ties between Ukraine and the IMF, and on the Constitutional Court to declare the results of the 16 April constitutional referendum illegal. JM

...WHILE SIMFEROPOL SHOWS MORE UNIFIED FRONT. "Many thousands" took part in a May Day march and meeting in Simferopol, Interfax reported. The meeting was organized by Crimean trade unions, the Communist Party, and other leftist organizations on the peninsula. The participants pledged in a resolution to spare no effort to create a "single economic area" on the entire post-Soviet territory and to give Russian the status of an official language in Ukraine. The celebrations were attended by Crimea's prime minister, parliamentary speaker, and other officials. JM