Tyshchenko, Yulia

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Policy Documentation Center

By-elections as the mirror of «electoral democracy» – Ukrainian style
No. 29/277, July 22, 2002
Yulia Tyshchenko, Head of Civil Society Programs
Constituencies 35, 201 and 18 were the only ones among 225 Ukrainian constituencies in which
the Central Election Commission recognized the election results as invalid and had them
abolished.
The by-elections were scheduled for July 14. They gave a number of Ukrainian «business
politicians» and MPs of earlier parliaments to try and get elected to the 4th parliament. The lists
of the candidates and the situation suggested that the campaign would be tough. On May 15
member of the
Central Election Commission Mykola Rybachuk predicted that as many as 15 to 20 candidates
could run in each of the constituencies, while in the general elections on March 31 the average
umber of candidates in a constituency was between 7 and 10. Actually, Mykola Rybachuk was
almost right: as many as 43 candidates ran in the three constituencies. Of them 15 used to be
MPs before, 26 were officially non-partisan, though some of them were supported by a specific
party or block. The candidates included 11 businessmen, 13 unemployed and 3 NGO activists.
The Summer Race
The by-elections in constituencies #35 (the Dnipropetrovsk region), #201 (Cherkasy) and #18
(the Vinnytsya region) suffered from the same problems as the 2002 in general and could be seen
as logical development of practices used during the 2002 campaign. The summer race, launched
on May 15, could be described in terms of the use of the notorious «administrative resource»,
buying votes and «black PR» campaigns. According to Oleksandr Chernenko, spokesman of the
Committee of Voters of Ukraine, «the components – the administrative resource, PR and buying
votes has been present in all three constituencies, which the dominant feature in each of the
districts was its own» (Politychna Ukraina, July 11, 2002). According to CVU’s long-term
monitoring results, «administrative resource in its unhidden form showed itself in district
#35,where the governor openly campaigned in favor of one of the candidates, where local
bureaucrats, particularly the structures of the Ministry of the Interior, were involved in the
elections in support of the candidacy of Victor Drachevsky.» In election constituency #201 in
Cherkasy, the CVU observers recorded «a huge number of technical things, particularly PR and
«black PR»/ During the summer campaign the local Cherkasy press wrote that «villages of the
Cherkasy district are virtually loaded with fake leaflets, on every pole there are announcements
on behalf of several candidates in the #201 constituency asking voters to come to polling stations
to get their UAH 30 or UAH 40 (Antenna, July 11, 2002). In constituency #18 of the Vinnytsya
region the CVU observers recorded «a very widespread fact of bribing voters, free giveaways or
low-price sales of goods and services.» Evidence of the use of «administrative resource» to
influence the outcome of the by-elections was observed by constituency #35 too. Therefore, the
by-elections produced a rather controversial result.
Stories of the Three Constituencies
Constituency #18
Following the voting on March 31, on April 3, 2002, the regional election commission officially
certified the election of Svitlana Melnyk, member of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, as a winner
of the race in that constituency. She received 27,496 votes. Yet, two days later the regional
election commission issued a resolution that the election result in the constituency was void
based on the judgement of the Shargorodsky Court of the Vinnytsya region that demanded to
partly satisfy the lawsuit of candidate Yevhen Sukhin, Melnyk’s top competitor who had
received 25,454 votes. According to Sukhin, a number of violations of the election law in the
constituency influenced the outcome of the race. On April 4 the Shargorodsky Court recognized
violations at 18 polling stations of the constituency. The Central Election Commission annulled
its earlier resolution certifying the election of Svitlana Melnyk and demanded that the regional
election commission reviewed all complaints, acts and appeals related to voting and vote
counting at the rest of the polling stations of the constituency that had not been subject of
consideration by the Court. On April 25, the elections in constituency #18 were announced
invalid, but the decision was now heard by the Supreme Court of Ukraine. The decision was
challenged by the who saw it as the power-holders’ «conspiracy» to prevent an opposition SPU
candidate from joining the parliament.
In the summer race Svitlana Melnyk was supported by the opposition and informally backed by
«a large part of opposition-minded Nasha Ukraina», as Oleksandr Chernenko of CVU put it,
though officially Nasha Ukraina supported a different candidate, formally non-partisan farming
cooperative chairman Mykola Odaynyk who is believed to be close to a leader of Nasha Ukraina
Petro Poroshenko. Poroshenko’s own positions in Vinnytsya have been traditionally strong.
Another strong candidate and competitor to Svitlana Melnyk and Mykola Odaynyk was Petro
Melnyk, rector of the Academy of State Taxation Service of Ukraine. On March 31, he already
completed for a seat in the parliament in constituency #95 of the Kyiv region, but lost to
opposition candidate Yevhen Zhovtiak. Though Petro Melnyk later challenged the election
results in constituency #95, his appeal was not satisfied.
The summer campaign in the Vinnytsya region brough some noteworthy developments: the
regional election commission disqualified Oleg Lantukh (who had come third in the March 31
polling) for submitting inaccurate financial report. Another disqualified candidate was Valery
Kolomoytsev-Rybalko.
The winner on July 14 was Mykola Odaynyk, supported by 46,276 voters (43.55%). The second
strongest candidate, Petro Melnyk, got 21.40% of the votes, while the winner of March 31
Svitlana Melnyk got only 17.6%.
Commenting Odaynyk’s victory, observers agree that its major component was the support of
Nasha Ukraine. Victor Yushchenko personally came to Vinnytsya to support the block’s
candidate. In March Nasha Ukraina had the best result in the region - 29.43% - but in a
majoritarian constituency then-candidate of Nasha Ukraina Mykola Koval received 16,298 and
the fourth best result. Later on, he withdrew from the by-election race. Another factor that helped
Odaynyk to win was what observers described as «accumulating the forces of authorities not so
much to make Odaynyk win as to stop Svitlana Melnyk» (according to Kostyantyn Bondarenko,
www.part.org.ua, July 15, 2002). As no significant violations were registered in the constituency
on the polling day, it is likely that soon Nasha Ukraina faction in the parliament will receive a
new recruit.
Constituency #201
On March 31, the winner of the race in the Cherkassy-based constituency was Mykola
Bulatetsky, a candidate of Nasha Ukraina, supported by 22,780 voters. The second strongest
candidate was member of the Democratic Union Oleksiy Marchenko, who received 19,971
votes.
On April 12, 2002, the Sosnivsky Court of Cherkasy satisfied Oleksiy Marchenko’s complaint
that the outcome of the voting had been affected by the failure of the regional election
commission to remove the name of Volodymyr Kosmyna, who had withdrawn from the race on
the even of the polling date, from the ballots. On April 16, following the special session of the
commission the day before, the regional election commission ignored the judgment of the
Sosnivka Court as groundless and pronounced Bulatetsky the winner again. On April 25,
however, the Central Election Commission satisfied Marchenko’s complaint and judged the
election result in the constituency invalid. On April 30 the Supreme Court of Ukraine judged that
the decision of the CEC had been legitimate and the election results in constituency 201 were
void.
The summer campaign in the constituency was fought not as much between Bulatetsky and
Marchenko as between newcomers from other regions. The constituency received the largest
number of potential candidates – 30, but only 12 of them were actually registered and took part
in the race. The favorites of the race were Bulatetsky and the former mayor of Cherkasy
Volodymyr Oliynyk, supported by Yulia Tymoshenko’s block. Another strong candidate was
leader of the radical left Progressive Socialist party Natalia Vitrenko. However, the outcome of
the race came as a surprise: the winner was Nestor Shufrych, a candidate of the SDPU (o) who
was registered for the race as the president of the Cherkasy Meat Company. Though never
present in any preliminary rankings or seen as a serious candidate, he received 29.80% of the
votes. The SDPU (o) got only 4.5% of the votes in the region on March 31. By all means,
Cherkasy cannot be regarded as a place where a stranger Nestor Shufrych from the
Transcarpathia would have influence and support. I n the 1998 elections, Shufrych, then
president of the West-Contrade Joint Venture, won a seat in the Transcarpathian region
(constituency #70), but was known in the 3rd parliament mainly as someone who is fond of
sports: he is a master archer, master tennis player; he is fond of horse riding and collecting
sables. In March he lost the race in the constituency to ex-mayor of Uzhgorod Serhiy
Ratushniak. Noteworthy, constituency #70 was infamous for the use of «dirty techniques» – for
instance, the constituency saw unprecedented number of namesakes among the candidates: or six
Ratushniaks who intended to take part in the race, there were three Ratushniaks whose first
names and patronymics were the same: Serhiy Mykhailovych.
During the by-elections in constituency 201, a number of violations were registered by CVU
observers. According to the CVU statement, «the most common were reports from observers
about evidence or suspicion of bribing voters (polling stations ## 1, 2, 7, 15, 16, 18, 23, 24, 29,
35, 36, 44, 49, 56, 69, 81, 88, 89, 90, 96)». Hence, according to the CVU, the major violations
that could influence the outcome of elections in the constituency were massive attempts to bribe
voters, but «the CVU does not have sufficient volume of evidence to determine the level of
impact of those violations on the volition of the citizens». Meanwhile, a local opposition
publication, Antenna, wrote that citizens «showered the regional election commission with
statements that UAH 20 had been offered for a vote for Shufrych». The candidates who lost to
Shufrych also claimed there were facts of bribing voters. Mykola Bulatetsky described the
polling day as «the marketplace, trade, purchase and sale of votes through a network marketing
method». Practically all other candidates shared his opinion and announced they were going to
challenge the result in court. At least five candidates were planning to pursue the case as of July
16.
On July 18 the CEC refused to satisfy the complaint of candidate Mykola Gaber who demanded
to annul the election results in constituency #201, as «all acts of violations that reportedly took
place during the voting on July 14 do not meet the legal requirements, as they were signed by
official observers without indication of their full name and made without involvement of voters»,
as the CEC put it (UNIAN, July 18, 2002).
Observers believe that the technique used by Shufrych may be successfully used in other
electoral battles, for instance, in the 2004 presidential elections. It is also argued that the
opposition lost as representatives of Nasha Ukraina (Bulatetsky) and Yulia Tymoshenko’s block
(Oliynyk) failed to find agreement again.
Constituency #35
During the March elections this constituency saw one of the most dramatic situations of political
confrontation between candidate of Nasha Ukraina Oleksandr Zhyr MP, head of the
parliamentary commission in charge of investigation of the murder of Georgy Gongadze, and a
representative of «Za Yedynu Ukrainu!», first deputy head of the regional Department of the
Interior and head of Criminal Militia of Dnipropetrovsk Victor Drachevsky.
In 1998, Oleksandr Zhyr was victorious in the constituency with 24.87% of the votes. He was
also the strongest candidate for the 2002 race. Hence, from the very start the race was hindered
by the use of the «administrative resource» against him. The vote counting procedure that gave
the victory to Drachevsky on March 31, 2002, was reported and heavily manipulated. Some time
later the Central Election Committee satisfied Oleksandr Zhyr’s appeal to annul the regional
election commission’s decision to pronounce Drachevsky as the winner. According copies of to
the protocols collected by Zhyr’s supporters at the polling stations, Drachevsky received 32,486
votes while Zhyr got 31,748 votes. Meanwhile, according to the data announced by the regional
election commission, Drachevsky was supported by 32,522 votes and Zhyr got 31,802 votes. The
verification of protocols showed that out of 92 protocols submitted to Zhyr to the CEC and the
official protocols submitted by the regional election commission only 37 had the same data. On
April 19 the CEC annulled the election results in constituency #35 of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
The key competitors in the by-elections in the constituency were Victor Drachevsky and
Oleksandr Zhyr. Initially, there had been another strong candidate, ex-director of the Nikopol
Ferroalloy Plant Oleksiy Koval, but he withdrew from the race. The «twin» method was also
used in the constituency: a namesake of the top candidate, Anatoly Zhyr, was registered to run.
Another potentially strong candidate who had the capacity to use the «administrative resource»
was Alla Malaya, deputy chairman of the regional council of elected representatives. The most
controversial development of the race was the judgment of the Nikopol City Court to disqualify
Oleksandr Zhyr. On July 12, only two days before the polling day, the Court judged that
Oleksandr Zhyr had broken the rules of the election law by using the funds from sources other
than his official election account to pay for his leaflets.
Zhyr’s party, the Party of Reforms and Order, issued an official statement accusing the regional
election commission of refusing to provide them with a copy of the decision and claiming that
direct appeals of Oleksandr Zhyr to the CEC had met reluctance of members of the CEC to react
to the situation. According to the statement, the elections in the constituency were substituted
with «appointment of a candidate by the executive branch». The situation was predictable:
Oleksandr Zhyr has been an integral part of the driving force behind the investigation into the
case of murder of Georgy Gongadze. He also met with Mykola Melnychenko and brought the
video tape of Melnychenko’s statement to Ukraine. Later on, Oleksandr Zhyr publicly said he
did not intend to challenge the outcome of the elections in his constituency: «what’s the point of
seeking truth in a system that is fully controlled by the power-holders?»(www.part.org.ua. July
15, 2002).
Earlier on, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine pulled out its observer mission from the
constituency and stated that «since the violations, found in constituency 35 during the pre-
election campaign, deprived the candidates of the right for equal conditions, and [deprived] the
citizens of the right for free expression of their volition, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine
withdrew from the observation of voting and vote counting in the constituency.»
Summing up, one may say that the by-elections reflected the practice that became common
during the March elections. While in each of the constituencies manipulations were different, it
is worth noting the «testing» of some techniques in constituencies #201 and #35. While in the
first case violations were widespread but difficult to prove, in the second case the drawbacks of
the election law were used to remove the strongest candidate from the race. The outcome in
constituency #35 demonstrated once again the problems of the Ukrainian law and growing
possibilities to break it, particularly by power-holders that control law-enforcement bodies. The
case showed the possibility to interpret the law freely and use the enforcement mechanisms
selectively – and domination of the «ends justify the means» attitude that is too distant from
democratic practice.
From Editorial Staff


By - elections as the mirror of \uabelectoral democracy\ubb \u2013 Ukrainian style

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