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Elections after elections: the show goes on
No. 15/263, April 15, 2002
In time of creation of a so-much sought-after parliamentary majority and difficult
negotiations between different political forces, every seat won in a majoritarian
constituency is even more valuable. Nowadays, the political forces that made it into the
parliament engage in vigorous political consultations, seeking to recruit independent MPs
into larger factions. It seems the majority is perceived literally «the more the better».
On April 9, 2002, leader of the «Za Yedynu Ukrainu» block, head of the presidential
administration Volodymyr Lytvyn announced that as many as 145 new «majoritarian»
MPs agreed to join the 35 members of the list of the block. In his opinion, that allows him
to believe that the MPs of the «Za Yedynu Ukrainu» block «will be able to become the
core of the parliamentary majority».
The active chase for majoritarian MPs may lead to an awkward situation: the block that
got only a little more than 11 percent of the votes might become an unchallenged leader.
Apparently, certain forces have rather specific vision and interpretation of the 2002
election results. Their eager efforts may distort the disposition of forces, elected by the
people, as the «Za Yedynu Ukrainu» block definitely cannot be seen as the people’s
favorite. Furthermore, the factions, created by means of recruiting independent
candidates through pressure and promises of favors for their businesses are unlikely to be
stable and manageable. Similar challenges face the majority if it is gathered through such
a method – such a majority would be far from stability and consolidation. It looks like the
power brokers do not learn on their mistakes and reproduce the failed example of the
faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Ukraine (PDP) of 1998. Then the
membership in the PDP was growing rapidly. By April 25, 1998, the PDP faction had 70
members, 40 of whom were not members of the party. About 10 days later the faction
was 85-strong. However, as the party began to lose influence and was substituted by its
competitors as «the party of power», the faction began to shrink similarly rapidly, and by
the end of this parliament (2002) it numbered only 14 MPs.
While the pressure on independent MPs to join the faction is strong, it is still difficult to
say whether the faction will grow to 180 MPs, as predicted by Lytvyn. For instance, the
Dnipropetrovsk-based MP Oleg Tsariov, elected in the majoritarian constituency #40,
refuted the information that he had agreed to join the «Za Yedynu Ukrainu» faction in the
new parliament (www.korrespondent.net, April 10, 2001).
Although the elections are over and preliminary results have been announced, and the
winners are in process of calculating their faction members, the final configuration of the
parliament still remains unclear. The outcome of the elections itself has been challenged
in a number of majoritarian constituencies. Yet, it is the final list of the majoritarian MPs
that will add the final shape to the majority and the parliament as a whole. Currently the
Central Election Commission (CEC) is in process of reviewing the complaints about
actions of regional election commissions and summing up the results. Individual
problems are deal with by regional election commissions and the courts.
Actually, according to Article 77 of the election law, in some specified cases the CEC
may judge the elections in some specified constituencies invalid. The reasons for that
would be major violations of the election law «that do not allow to determine the results
of the expression of the voters’ volition with adequate probability» provided that «the
number of polling stations at which voting in a single-mandate constituency is judged
invalid is no less than 25 percent of the total number of polling stations on the territory of
that single-mandate constituency».
The CEC could accept complaints about the voting results till April 5. Currently the CEC
is reviewing 99 complaints from 50 single-mandate constituencies. According to the CEC
secretary Rostislav Davydovych, the claimants mainly asked to invalidate results of the
elections in specific constituencies, claiming there were major violations or that the local
election commissions worked inadequately (Ukraina Moloda, April 9, 2002).
Generallyl, the number of complaints received by the CEC is slightly higher than in 1998.
Then, before the 1998 election results were officially announced, the CEC judged about
70 complaints. The main conclusiojn of the CEC was that «there had been irregularities,
but they had not had substantial impact on the voting results» (Silski Visti, April 16,
1998). Yet, by April 29, 1998, resukts of elections in 11 majoritarian constituencies were
judged invalid, and the Pechersky borough court of Kyiv investigated 22 more
complaints. Nowadays, election results are challenged in fewer constituencies. By April
12, 2002, the election results in only one majoritarian constituency, #90, was announced
invalid by the CEC, but many more cases are still unresolved. In such situations, the role
of the court becomes critical.
The block of Victor Yushchenko Nasha Ukraina has been particularly affected by the
process, as the candidate who won in constituency #90 was nominated by the block. The
CEC, however, judged that the elections in the constituency were invaliud, based on the
complained filed by an individual named Bohdan Kondiuk. The official reason was the
fact that on March 30 the regional election commission removed candidate Mykola
Shkriblyak from the race, as he was killed the day before. Several other candidates who
had run in that constituency formally withdrew from the race. However, the resolution
was not transferred to local election commissions, and on the polling day the ballots still
included the names of the candidates that had withdrawn. In a number of polling stations,
the information about the withdrawak of the candidates from the race was received on the
polling day after the voting began. IN accordance with the election law (Article 77,
paragraph 1), «The CEC may judge the elections of a deouty in a majoritarian
constituency invalid following the recommendation of a relevant election commission if
«the number of polling stations in which the voting was judged invalid comprises at least
25 percent pf the total umber of polling stations formed at the territory of that
magoritarian constituency.»
Hence, upon judging the eleciton results in the constituency to be invalid, the CEC
abolished its resolution about registration of Roman Zvarych as the winner in that
constituency. On March 31, Zvarych received 60.9 percent of the votes. His strongest
competitor, director of the TIM company (the town of Nadvirna) Ihor Tymchuk got 9.96
percent. Commenting on the decision of the CEC, Zvarych dismissed the judgment as
illegitimate. In his view, the CEC might make such a decision «in cases when the
registered irregularities had an impact of the voting results <…> nobody denied the fact
that I got 78,000 votes. The point is that at four polling stations the ballots did not
indicate «withdrawn» opposite to the names of the candidates who withdrew from the
race. It is hard for me to understand how that can influence the fact that 78,000 persons
voted for me,» he argued. He added that «part 2 of Article 73 of the parliamentary
election law contains «direct prohibition to make such decisions in cases when the
irregularities were to the benefit of one of the candidates that failed» (Interfax-Ukraina,
April 10, 2002). Zvarych announced he intended to complain to the Supreme Court and
argued that the CEC decision had been based more on politics than on law: «I think there
are all reasons to say that the decision does not meet the election law, and I begin to be
convinced that, most likely, the matter is not law but politics, that the decision was made,
to put it mildly, with a certain political subtext,» he stressed.
Another loss from the Nasha Ukraina list occurred in majoritarian constituency #119,
where the result of the voting were also abolished by the CEC based on the complaint
from candidate Zoreslava Romovska, and the vote counting protocols which, according
to Romovska, has been forged. The CEC decided that there were substantial irregularities
in 36 protocols and judged to annul the results of the voting in that constituency, where
the victory had been initially given to Oleksandr Hudyma. The CEC also ruled that the
regional election commission should review protocols of the relevant local election
commissions and the protocols sent by Romovska.
Yet another case of annulment of the voting results occurred in majoritarian constituency
#18. On April 10 the CEC annulled the decision of the regional election commission that
had given the victory to members of the Socialist party Svitlana Melnyk, and the
subsequent decision of the same regional election commission to judge the elections in
that constituency invalid. The CEC gave the regional election commission two days to
reviews all 223 complaints but those reviewed by the Shargorod court of the Vinnytsya
region, and announce the final results of the voting based on that review. According to
the protocols, Svitlana Melnyk received 27,496 votes, and her most successful
competitor, a businessman from Kyiv Yevhen Sukhin received 25,454 votes. According
to a leader of the Socialist party Josyp Vinsky, the Socialists are going to challenge that
decision in court. Vinsky argues that the Socialists have won fairly and blamed the CEC
for inaction (Interfax-Ukraina, April 11, 2002).
Among the complaints rejected by the CEC to date is the one from member of the
Communist Party Svitlana Druziuk who demanded to annul the election results in
constituency #138 because the ballots there had presented her a candidate from the
Communist Party (renewed), a competitor of the «proper» Communists», not the
Communist Party. Similarly, the CEC rejected the complaints from member of the
Ukrainian Republican Party Vyacheslav Bilous, in constituency #148,where the victory
was given to chairman of the board of the Ukrnafta Corporation Oleg Salmin. The list of
rejected complaints includes those by member of the PDP and candidate of the «Za
Yedynu Ukrainu» Petro Melnyk (constituency #95), Vitaly Zhuravsky (constituency
#68), and Oleksiy Shekhovtsov (constituency # 52). The complaint by Mykhailo Serbin
(constituency #58), where a large number of «strangers» with absentee vote permits were
reportedly brought by some candidates to vote in his favor, was also rejected, and the
victory was given to representative of the «Za Yedynu Ukrainu!» block Oleksandr
Leshchynsky. Other rejected complaints claimed the election results were distorted by the
violations in constituencies #84 (Anatoly Yermak), #171, #92, #199, #141, #224, #146
(Oleksandr Kulyk), #139 (Oleksandr Zhovtis), #217 (Oleg Lyashko), #218 (Pavlo
Shkrobot), #221, #219, #66, #15, #188, #40, #135, and #122. The CEC, though, ordered
the verification of protocols of local election commissions of constituencies #59 and #34.
Another case when the resolution on the voting results was annulled occurred in
constituency #35 and concerned candidate Oleksandr Zhyr, the head of the process of
parliamentary investigation into the Melnichenko tapes. By the way, the election results
were also annulled in that constituency in 1998, and the victory was given to Zhyr.
Nowadays Zhyr argues that he has a video tape that shows «rude violations of the
election law and facts of interference of local officials with the electio process» (Interfax-
Ukraina, April 9, 2002). He argues that on the polling day the militia did not let official
observers representing any of the candidates, except the candidate of the «Za Yedynu
Ukrainu!» to enter the polling stations. He also ads that his observers managed to
document a major discrepancy in a number of ballots received by the regional election
commission from the CEC and the total number of ballots indicated in the commission’s
protocols after the voting. Zhyr has filed his complained with the Supreme Court of
Ukraine.
The CEC is supposed to announce the election results in majoritarian constituencies later
today. However, tehre are reasons to be lievethat there will be more constituencies in
which the results would be annulled as invalid. Then the matters will go to courts.
According to par. 5 of Article 77 of the parliamentary election law, «the Central Election
Commission may judget the election of an MP in a majoritarian constituency as invalid
on its own initiative if there are reasons envisaged by par. 1 of this article, or based on
judgement of the court.» It is worth noting that complaints of candidates that belong to
some political forces are satisfied more often than comlaints of the others. So far the
problems and irregularities have been «noticed» mostly in cases when the winners were
representatives of Nasha Ukraina or the Socialist party, but not the pro-presidential
forces. Therefore, in some of the cases the decisions to reconsider the election results
could be based more on political considerations than on tranparent and unbiased
judgement. Before the final results are announced, a threat that the voting results may be
reviewed may act as a serious argument for independent candidates being coerced into
joining the faction of the «parties of power».
However, not all of the cases of annulment of the election results were based on dubious
claims. In some cases, the reasons for that were quite real and, should they have been left
without proper reaction, could have set risky precedents. One of the examples was the
annulment of the local (mayoral) election results by the Kirovohrad city election
commission. The gross violations of the law there included the facts of filling out the
ballots outside the special «confidentiality» booths, the cases of presence of several
voters in a booth. Some voters who received the empty ballots and could vote had not
shown any valid IDs as required by the law. The polling stations opened late, and a
number of voters could not vote because of the long lines. Yet, such violations were
observed at practically all polling stations. Noteworthy, an experiment in constituency
#117 showed that «a voter had only 0.8 minute to express his or her «free will»»
(www.for-ua.com, April 12, 2002). The queues at the polling stations, the bad technical
organization of the elections did not influence the judgment of the Lviv Court of Appeal
who rejected the complaints of Mykola Knyazhytsky, TV presenter, who ran for a seat in
constituency #117 and demanded that he results of the voting be annulled as invalid.
Hence, the elections are not over yet, and the new week may add some intrigue to the
final vote counting as the process goes on.


Elections after elections: the show goes on

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