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Ukraine's poll hit by dirty tricks row, killing
By Elizabeth Piper

KIEV, March 30 (Reuters) - Dead voters, fake addresses and a glut of ballot papers will secure victory for forces loyal to President Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine's parliamentary poll and fuel widespread corruption, an opposition leader said on Saturday.

Ukrainians vote on Sunday in an election marred by the slaying of a little-known pro-presidential candidate and accusations of widespread dirty tricks during campaigning.

Western investors and observers see the poll as a key test of the ex-Soviet state's young democracy and the popularity of their longest serving post-independence leader, Kuchma.

Julia Tymoshenko, an outspoken critic of Kuchma and one of Ukraine's most charismatic politicians, said her party -- the Bloc of Julia Tymoshenko -- would monitor voting and run a parallel counting system to prove the results were faked.

"Today, there are so many dead souls in all the regions of Ukraine...There are addresses where people just do not live," Tymoshenko said.

She was making reference to a satire by Nikolai Gogol about a man who bought up dead serfs to increase his social standing by giving the impression he was in charge of more people.

"We are sure that the election will be falsified...So we are setting up an alternative system," she said, barely audible after losing her voice during an earlier rally to thousands in the centre of capital, Kiev. Ukrainian election law bans campaigning the day before the election.

GAS PRINCESS TAKES ON KUCHMA

Tymoshenko, dubbed Ukraine's "gas princess" for her striking looks and involvement in the energy sector, said her party could fail to make the four percent threshold to enter parliament due to alleged widespread violations initiated by the authorities.

Kuchma and the For United Ukraine party, led by the head of his administration, have denied the charges, saying all has been done to ensure a fair election.

Tymoshenko, who is the subject of a fraud and bribery probe into her time as head of a private gas trading firm in the mid-1990s, said Kuchma intended to run for a third term as head of state, which is banned by the constitution.

"Repression and falsification are widespread in Ukraine," she said.

In a sign of rising tensions at the tail-end of election campaigning, a pro-presidential candidate for parliament was shot and killed in the pro-European region of western Ukraine late on Friday.

Kuchma was quoted by Interfax Ukraine as ordering the police to launch an investigation immediately. It also quoted the local prosecutor as saying the murder was politically motivated.

Western observers have voiced concern over election violations in the country, strategically placed between a growing European Union and Russia, its former imperial master.

Media freedom in Ukraine was thrust into the spotlight when the headless corpse of a journalist critical of Kuchma was discovered almost two years ago.

The publication of tapes in which a voice alleged to be similar to Kuchma's discussed the reporter's kidnapping sparked Ukraine's biggest political scandal in a decade. Kuchma has denied any role in the journalist's death.