KHARKIV, Ukraine -- The parliamentary election in Kharkiv on Oct. 26 was marred by a scandal over single-member district ballots distributed at hospitals, which were interpreted by some as contrary to the law and a sign of voting fraud.
The
scandal revolved around whether hospital patients have a right to vote only for
party lists or also for candidates in single-member districts.
Critics
blamed the presumed manipulations on Kharkiv Mayor Gennady Kernes and former
Party of Regions candidates whom he supports. Kharkiv remains one of the last
bases of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s allies.
Kharkiv
City Hall was not available by phone and did not respond to a request for
comment sent by the Kyiv Post.
The
scandal erupted after the Central Elections Commission issued a controversial
letter on Oct. 26 saying that Ukrainian citizens located abroad and “those
whose polling station has been changed (without a change in the polling
address)” have a right to vote for party lists but not for candidates in
single-mandate districts, according to a copy of the letter, signed by the
commission’s head Mikhailo Okhendovsky, that was obtained by the Kyiv Post.
The
commission said that there were no other reasons for not distributing
single-mandate ballots, and that refusal to distribute such ballots at “special
polling stations,” including hospitals, was contrary to the law. The Central
Elections Commission was not available for comment.
The
commission’s letter was subject to different interpretations.
Oleksandr
Breus, head of the election commission at polling station 631305, told the Kyiv
Post that hospital patients were not de jure people who “changed their
polling station.” His commission distributed both single-mandate and
party-list ballots to patients.
However, others interpreted this differently. Representatives of Prime Minister
Arseny Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front came to polling station 631305 and said the
commission’s members would face criminal penalties because of its decision on
ballots, Breus said.
District
Commission No. 170 also argued that distribution of single-member district
ballots was at odds with the law, effectively annulling the decision of the
Central Elections Commission, Nadiya Savinska, an activist of the Democratic
Alliance party running in the district, said by phone. District Commission No.
170 was not available for comment.
Natalya
Ruzhentseva, head of the commission at polling station 631167 in district No.
170, told the Kyiv Post that the commission believed voters at hospitals should
receive only party-list ballots, under Ukrainian law.
Sergei
Fedchenko, a member of the commission representing the Poroshenko Bloc, said
that Vitaly Nemilostivy, a candidate backed by the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, and
Valery Pisarenko, a candidate who was previously supported by the Party of
Regions, had tried to pressure them to distribute single-member district
ballots and thwarted their work.
“They were trying to scare us, saying that we would be jailed,” he said,
adding that their aim was to disrupt the election. Fedchenko also said they had
called the Security Service and police and filed complaints with them.
This
position was shared by other members of the commission and an observer
representing the Poroshenko Bloc who spoke on condition of anonymity for
security reasons.
Mikhail
Kamchatny, head of the Kharkiv branch of Ukraine’s Voters Committee, agreed
that the distribution of single-mandate ballots was unlawful, Interfax-Ukraine
reported.
Savinska
said that Kernes and his allies linked to the Party of Regions could be behind
the presumed manipulations.
Vladimir
Chistilin, leader of the Kharkiv EuroMaidan movement, said by phone that former
and current members of the Party of Regions were highly likely to win in almost
all single-member districts in the city. “Kharkiv is the last stronghold of the
Party of Regions,” he said.
Chistilin
is running in district No. 168 as part of the “New People” team, which unites
candidates backed by Kharkiv’s EuroMaidan movement.
The
Poroshenko Bloc is also using administrative resources to promote his
candidates, Chistilin said. The presidential administration and the Poroshenko
Bloc could not be reached for comment.
Moreover,
some campaign posters of the Poroshenko Bloc and Batkyvshchyna remained despite
the ban on campaigning on election day and the day before it, Savinska said.
This reporter saw a poster with the Poroshenko Bloc campaign’s slogan, “it’s
time to unite,” without the bloc’s name at the crossing of Universitetska
Vulitsya and Pavlovska Ploshcha on Oct. 26.
Other
reported violations in Kharkiv included vote buying, bomb threats at several
stations, busing elderly people to some of the stations and the detention of a
person armed with an assault rifle at one of the stations. In the city of
Lozova in the Kharkiv oblast, City Hall was seized by two unknown armed men,
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be reached at [email protected].
