The Kyiv municipal administration's deputy head Irena Kilchytska is confident that incumbent Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi will win if early mayoral elections are held in Kyiv.

Kilchytska was speaking at a meeting of the club of experts called "Ukrainian Choice: Early Elections in Kyiv, Its Appropriateness, Forecasts, and Format," which was organized by the Ukrainian News information agency and the Agency for Modeling Situations.

"...People, ordinary Kyiv residents whose fate nobody cared about for many years, they will support Chernovetskyi and his team, and Chernovetskyi will only receive twice more [votes] if early elections are held in Kyiv," Kilchytska said.

At the same time, she stressed that there are no grounds for holding early mayoral elections in Kyiv, except for the desire of certain politicians.

She expressed the belief that these politicians are moved by their own interests and personal ambitions.

Meanwhile, she said she was not ruling out organization of early mayoral elections are held in Kyiv of the parliament adopts the relevant resolution.

"But we ourselves will not initiate early elections," Kilchytska said.

She also expressed the belief that Chernovetskyi's opponents were accusing him of inability to manage Kyiv in vain.

According to her, the transport, housing, and utility problems in Kyiv accumulated long before Chernovetskyi became the mayor of the city and are only starting to come to the surface now.

Kilchytska also said that support for Chernovetskyi among Kyiv residents was increasing.

As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Chernovetskyi said in November 2007 that he was confident of victory if early mayoral elections were held in Kyiv.

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and the Our Ukraine-People's Self-Defense bloc agreed in October 2007 to form a coalition in the sixth parliament and initiate early mayoral and municipal-council elections in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian News information agency has been operating on the Ukrainian information market since 1993, and it is presently the leading provider of business, financial, and political news in the country.

The Agency for Modeling Situations was founded in 2002 by a group of political scientists, sociologists, journalists, and public-relations specialists. It engages in political analysis and drafting of medium- and long-term forecasts.