KIEV, July 25 – President Viktor Yanukovych’s Regions Party will hold a meeting on Monday to approve a list of candidates that will run for parliamentary seats at general elections in October, the party announced Wednesday.

The list, which is expected to be led by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Tyhypko, will be watched for potential surprises that may indicate changes in the government’s future policies.

Analysts will watch whether Serhiy Liovochkin, the powerful chief of staff at Yanukovych’s administration, will be included in the list, a sign of whether or not he may be losing his influence on the president.

“At the meeting the party will approve its election platform and a list of candidates,” the Regions Party said in a statement.

The meeting of the ruling Regions Party on Monday bodes well for an expected emergency session of Parliament that many lawmakers believe will take place the next day, on Tuesday July 31.

“July 31 is the most probable date for the emergency session,” Yuriy Miroshnichenko, a lawmaker from the Regions Party and Yanukovych’s representative to Parliament, said.

The session is apparently aimed at replacing Parliamentary Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn and Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Mykola Tomenko to make the leadership of Parliament even more loyal to Yanukovych.

The developments underscore maneuvering ahead of the general elections on October 28 that may pose a challenge to Yanukovych for the first time since he won the presidential election in February 2010.

Miroshnichenko said that lawmakers at the emergency session will also seek to approve a number of important bills submitted by the government, but opposition figures said the real targets are Lytvyn and Tomenko.

Lytvyn refused to sign a controversial bill that introduces Russian as the second state language in many Ukrainian regions, while Tomenko is a member of the opposition group Batkivshchyna.

“Tomenko will be the first, and Lytvyn will be the second on the agenda for the removal,” Serhiy Sobolev, a senior member of the Batkivshchyna party, said. “I think there is only one goal – to replace the leadership of Parliament.”

Sobolev also said the reshuffle will help the Regions Party to change a law that regulates future appointment and dismissal of speaker in parliament. The changes, suggested by the Regions Party, seek to make it easier to dismiss and to appoint the speaker, and may come handy if the opposition groups outperform the riling party at the upcoming elections.

“These are the key issues,” Sobolev said. “The rest is just a smoke screen.” (tl/ez)