Parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine on 31 March 2002. The Our Ukraine bloc emerged as the largest faction in the Verkhovna Rada, winning 113 of the 450 seats. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted at the time that there were physical assaults and harassment of candidates and campaign workers associated with opposition political parties prior to the March election. The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc complained of campaign related violations including "an informal 'media blackout,' [and] negatively slanted coverage". Electoral system In this election, parallel voting was used. Half of the deputies to Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine) were elected on proportional basis, while the other half were elected by popular vote in single-mandate constituencies. In order to gain any (proportional) seats in Verkhovna Rada a party needed to receive at least 4% of the popular vote. Opinion polls Conduct On 29 March 2002 the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko won a case on defamation against the Chairman of the Tax Administration of Ukraine Mykola Azarov. The Shevchenkivsky District Court of the Kyiv city prohibited the Tax Administration of Ukraine to spread lies against the opposition electoral bloc. Late at night on 29 March 2002 vice-governor of the Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Mykola Shkriblyak was mortally wounded. Shkriblyak was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (united) and he was a parliamentary candidate in the 90th electoral district. He died later in a local hospital. Results The final election results differed greatly from the final opinion poll. The 2002 parliamentary elections were the first that substantially reduced fragmentation of the Verkhovna Rada and laid the groundwork for consolidation of political views in the parliament. Yushchenko's Our Ukraine gathered most of its support from western and central regions of Ukraine, including the city of Kyiv. The Communist Party received most of its votes from eastern and southern regions, as well as from Crimea. For United Ukraine block, which included Victor Yanukovych's Party of Regions, got most of its votes from eastern regions of Ukraine. Donetsk Oblast was the stronghold of the block, where it received more than twice the number of votes (36.83%) compared to the next highest supporting region: Sumy Oblast with 17.05% of the region's voters. Yulia Tymoshenko's block's support came predominantly from western regions, while the Socialists were most supported in the central regions. While the Tymoshenko block received more of the national vote compared to the