CEC is failing to meet the deadline for the announcement of the election results

Photo: Reuters

Today is the deadline for the Central Election Commission to announce the results of the snap parliamentary elections. The CEC representatives admit that they will not be able to name all deputies that were elected to the Verkhovna Rada on time due to the scandals in the first-past-the-post constituencies and blame the Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration (OSA) Ihor Kolomoyskiy for this.

The shadow of Kolomoyskiy

Yesterday, CEC Chairman Mykhailo Okhendovskiy accused Head of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration Ihor Kolomoyskiy of putting pressure on the commission. He said the reason for such suspicions was the intentions of the CEC to recount the votes in two voting constituencies – No. 30 and No. 50. “I began receiving pressured requests in different forms to stop the recount and then I received direct threats. Over the past week I was also repeatedly hinted that my strong position seriously disturbs Kolomoyskiy,” Okhendovskiy said at a briefing. In addition to that, today there is also pressure on the district commission in Constituency No. 38 (Dnipropetrovsk oblast), he noted.

Kolomoyskiy believes that the statements of Okhendovskiy are directly linked to the advertised story about the corruption of the head of the CEC that will be aired on the 1+1 TV Channel. As a reminder, the TV channel is controlled by the co-owner of the Privat Group.

Deputy Head of the Dnipropetrovsk OSA Svyatoslav Oliynyk sticks to a similar version. “Okhendovskiy took a defensive stand, trying to argue that he is being pressured because of his uncompromising position. In truth, however, it is all about the announcement of the story that will be aired on TV and tell how the chair of the CEC demanded a bribe for the votes to be counted in somebody’s favor in a number of constituencies,” Oliynyk told Capital.

Oliynyk assures that the CEC has a selective approach to resolving problems in the election districts. “It is strange that the CEC demanded to recount the votes in the constituencies No. 30 and No. 50, though not in the constituency No. 59, where the situation definitely implied that a recount must be done. The CEC simply got mixed up. The commission does not act independently, but on the instructions of the presidential administration,” believes Oliynyk, who predicts a negative public reaction to the actions of the CEC to the point of mass protests.

Noteworthy, despite that all 100% of the voting ballots have been processed in the constituencies No. 30 and No. 50, the CEC still has not announced the winners there.

According to information that Capital possesses, as of Sunday afternoon, a candidate from the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, CEO of DniproAzot Oleksandr Dubinin, is winning in Constituency No. 30 and self-nominated Yevhen Heller is winning in Constituency No. 50. Both, according to information of Capital, were supported at the elections by the team of Kolomoyskiy. Self-nominated Director of Orelskiy United Elevator Vadym Nesterenko, who is considered to be close to one of the Opposition Bloc’s leaders Oleksandr Vilkul, is so far winning in Constituency No. 38.

As the publication reported earlier, due to the conflict in Constituency No. 59 with the center in Maryinka, Donetsk oblast, the CEC was unable to announce the preliminary results on the party lists for several days. The district commission was blocked by representatives of volunteer subdivisions supporting one of the candidates – Commander of Headquarters of Dnipro-1 battalion Valentyn Manko. He is considered one of Kolomoyskiy’s men. Manko, however, is losing at the moment to Kurakhovo Mayor Serhiy Sazhko, who is believed to be Rinat Akhmetov’s protégé.

Two years later

Yesterday, the CEC admitted that it would not be able to establish the names of all deputies who won the elections on time. Okhendovskiy said that the VR could begin its work without several deputies, the names of which will be announced later. Chairman of the Board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) Oleksiy Koshel points out that the law does not prohibit the CEC from postponing the announcement of the election results. “The law does not provide a mechanism of accountability of CEC in this case and the commission can easily announce the results on November 11 or 12. The deputies elected in such constituencies will simply begin their work later,” said Koshel noting that the losers have five days to contest the results.

Former Chair of the CVU Oleksandr Chernenko, who ran for the VR on the PPB list, says this is the second time that the CEC is unable to announce the full results of the elections on time. “During the campaign of 2012 CEC announced that it could not establish the voting results in five constituencies and additional elections had to be held later. Now, the CEC is diverting from this option, intending to announce some results of the elections later on. It has to resort to this step, because the commission must fulfill the court’s decision on a vote recount,” said Chernenko.

Koshel believes that the current parliamentary campaign showed that the practice of vote recount based on a court decision poses a threat to the election process in the country. “With the single-member system such a court ruling can protract or even disrupt the election process, because during the recount the voting data can be falsified,” he believes.

Noteworthy, the vote recount already changed the winner in Constituency No. 79. Earlier, the DEC named Oleksandr Hryhorchuk, Chairman of the Trade Union Organization of the Zaporizhzhia Iron Ore Plant controlled by Rinat Akhmetov, the winner of the elections. Yesterday, Okhendovskiy announced that after the vote recount, the leader of the election race changed. Former member of the Party of Regions, MP Oleksandr Bandurov, who is linked by the press to Yuriy Ivanyushchenko and Chief of the State Department of Affairs Serhiy Berezenko was Hryhorchuk’s main contender.