On 8 October 2008 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko tried to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and called early parliamentary elections in Ukraine for the second time in as many years[19] for 7 December 2008.

The President's decree has since lapsed as it was never put into action[24] (the coalition supporting the second Tymoshenko Government was extended) and appeals to Ukraine's Constitutional Court were withdrawn.

[44] In June 2011 the Venice Commission reviewed a proposed Draft Law on the election of Ukrainian parliamentary members.

[50] The opposition and Ukrainian analysts accused the Party of Regions of "rewriting the law so that the president could secure a majority in the next Verkhovna Rada.

[57][58][59] The possibility to be simultaneously be nominated on a nationwide party list and in a single mandate constituency also was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on 10 April 2012.

[8] The party stated it advocated "European values" and promised to reverse the Azarov Government policy of raising the status of the Russian language.

[8] UDAR avoided sensitive and polarising subjects and focused instead on popular topics, such as more empowerment to ordinary Ukrainians and a ruthless campaign against corruption, the indifference of the authorities, the lack of local governance, inequality and poverty.

[8] Overall the election programs of the major parties bore many similarities; all pledged reforms to spur economic growth, higher wages, pensions and other benefits, better education and medical care.

[83] Denys Kovrizhenko of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems – Ukraine stated the sum of money spend could be up to 10 times more than what parties report afterwards.

[10] From 2011 to 2013 with liaison to Serhiy Lyovochkin, Alan Friedman, Eckart Sager, who was a one time CNN producer, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Manafort's senior aide Konstantin Kilimnik devised a strategy to discredit then Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko along with then United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who had been an outspoken critic of pro-Russia, pro-Kremlin, and pro-Putin supporters in Ukraine.

[101][102][103] This strategy included: creating a fake think tank in Vienna, Austria, the Center for the Study of Former Soviet Socialist Republics (CXSSR), to support Yanukovich and his Party of Regions; using a social media blitz with Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, and altering the Google's search stack to disseminate articles and videos that undermine opponents of the Party of Regions and Yanukovich in Europe and the United States; rewriting Wikipedia articles to smear Yanukovich opponents especially Tymoshenko; and using Breitbart News, RedState, and an article in The Wall Street Journal to discredit the Obama State Department and Hillary Clinton herself.

[100] Alan Friedman, who had not registered as a foreign agent in the United States, told Kostyantyn Gryshchenko that Friedman, who often wrote using the pen name Matthew Lina, published dozens of positive stories about the Party of Regions and Yanukovich and ensured that these were disseminated to over 2,000 publications and placed at the top of Google search stacks.

[109] In June 2012 the Committee of Voters of Ukraine declared that the use of government resources for partisan ends would not be decisive in the (then upcoming) elections.

[114] According to Opora the most common violations of the electoral law during the election campaign in August were using government resources for partisan purposes and vote buying.

[121] A notably reported scandal took place at the electoral district 215 where initially a win was awarded to the acting chairman of the Kyiv city council Halyna Hereha.

[126][127] Another big scandal with involvement of the riot law enforcement unit of Berkut took place at the 95th electoral district (a Kyivan suburban city of Irpin).

The electoral commission at the district was the slowest and the public involvement surely did not help to speed up the process, however a possible miscounting was prevented.

[130] Oleh Tyahnybok told Ukrainska Pravda that "Svoboda" will be picketing "EpiCenter" supermarkets and apartments of the 223rd electoral district commission members.

[135] This contrasted sharply with the international observers' conclusions on Ukraine's February 2010 presidential election, judged then to have been transparent, unbiased and an "impressive display" of democracy.

[62] Poland is to send observers to Ukraine to monitor the elections, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski stated on 8 February 2012.

[137] German Ambassador to Ukraine Hans-Jürgen Heimsoeth [de] stated "Germany is planning to send a numerous group of official supervisors" on 13 March 2012.

An impression that “antidemocratic power” clash with “democratic opposition” imposed by European and world society has a very relative nature that, as a rule, doesn’t distinct the real situation.

When the “Power Elite” is unconsolidated and disconnected and there is an open internal war between leading financial-industrial groups and corporations of Ukraine to get leverage of real state authority, all existing political parties only play the role of institutionalized political framework of realization of oligarchs’ economic interests.

[142] On 5 October 2012 the CIS-EMO report was presented at the annual meeting of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.

[161] Party of Regions politician Sergei Tigipko stated in December 2012 "the parliamentary elections showed that politics in Ukraine is becoming more ideological".

[163] The also expected to see "swift and determined action" to bring Ukraine's electoral legislation "into line with European norms and standards on the basis of an Election Code".

[171][172] That amendment to regulations can also be interpreted as "either or" meaning that the smallest faction can be formed either based on party list or a single constituency election.

[147] On 29 December 2012, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a query from 54 Verkhovna Rada members concerning procedures for the five repeat elections.

[148] In early February 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine ordered the Central Election Commission of Ukraine to hold new elections in 2 more districts after the court removed the deputy mandates of United Centre member Pavlo Baloha (at the time a member of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction) and independent Oleksandr Dombrovsky.

[188] On 12 September 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine (under a lawsuit lodged by Yuriy Karmazin) ruled it impossible to reliably establish the results of 28 October 2012 elections in single-mandate constituency No.