Ukrainians began casting their ballot Sunday in the presidential election to choose a successor to President Leonid Kuchma.

A total of 24 candidates were on the ballot to succeed Kuchma, and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich and a former prime minister, Viktor Yushchenko, are believed to be presidential hopefuls.

If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote in Sunday's election, a runoff between the top two will be held on Nov. 21.

Kuchma is completing his second five-year term. Polling stations are due to close at 8:00 PM (1700 GMT).

In recent weeks, the opposition, allied with Yushchenko, has complained of intimidation and abuses by the government and claimed that the ruling party will cheat in the elections.

Several opposition groups announced earlier they would conduct mass protests in front of the Ukrainian Central Election Commission later Sunday.

However, fearing of clashes with police and the military, Yushchenko declared cancellation of the protests around the election headquarters.

Yushchenko once served as Kuchma's prime minister, but now claimed that the president served the interests of business clans.

On election day, around 147,000 policemen and thousands of soldiers were on duty throughout the country to preserve order in Kiev.

Analysts believed that no candidate was expected to win in the first round of elections, and the top two vote recipients, possibly Yanukovich and Yushchenko, would compete in a runoff on Nov. 21.

(Xinhua News Agency November 1, 2004)