Ukraine’s presidential candidates by the numbers (INFOGRAPHICS)

Only half of those who submitted
documents to the Central Election Commission were registered as
official candidates, the rest were turned down because they failed to
produce the full set of required documents, including proof of
putting down the deposit of Hr 2.5 million for running. Some of the
candidates intentionally filed documents proving that their deposit
was smaller (Hr 25 and Hr 170 in two cases). OPORA found no violation
of candidates’ rights to be registered.

Sergiy Tigipko is the richest of 23 candidates, according to official declarations filed to the Central Election Commission.

OPORA also observed that the number of
candidates representing political parties has gone down in the
current election. Only 52 percent of the candidates are party
members, but 70 percent are self-nominated. By comparison, in 1999
presidential election 80 percent of the candidates had party
membership, and 20 percent were self-nominated. This means that
politicians are trying to distance themselves from their political
force.

The poorest of the candidates in the May 25 election are Dmytro Yarosh and Zoryan Shkiryak.

This year’s election is unprecedented
because none of the nation’s top officials are running for president.
None of the candidates work in the Cabinet or central government
organs. Also, because former President Viktor Yanukovych is not
running, there is no influence on the campaign from the acting head
of state. By comparison, in 2010, the president, speaker and prime
minister ran for president. The absence of top officials might reduce
administrative pressure and conflicts related to abuse of office in
this election campaign.

Olga Bogomolets and Volomymyr Saranov declared the most assets of all 23 candidates.

Like in the previous presidential
election, the majority of candidates are parliament members. These
are Anatoliy Hrytsenko, Petro Poroshenko, Sergiy Tigipko, Oleh
Liashko, Oleh Tsariov, Oleh Tyahnybok and Petro Symonenko. A big
share of candidates in this election are temporarily unemployed, and
this is related to the rotations in the government. These are
Mykhailo Dobkin, Yuriy Boyko, Natalya Korolevska, Vasyl Tsushko,
Dmytro Yarosh and Zoryan Shkiryak.

Only five from the list have run for
president before. The most experienced of them is Petro Symonenko,
who took part in 1999, 2004 and 2010 elections.

Petro Symonenko, the Communist Party nominee, is the most persistent presidential candidate in the May 25 election. He is running for the fourth time. Four others are trying their luck for the second time.

Only three women are running for
president, representing 13 percent of candidates. The average age of
the candidates is 50. The oldest candidate is Symonenko, who is 61,
and the youngest is Korolevska, who is 38.

The youngest and elders candidates in May 25 presidential election.