Ukraine local elections result in lower-than-expected turnout

The Ukrainian government held elections nationally on Oct. 25 for local councils and their heads, with voter turnout reaching 46.6 percent, as reported by the Central Election Commission several hours after polls closed. In the election for mayor of Kyiv, incumbent Vitali Klitschko – a close ally to President Petro Poroshenko – won 40.4 percent of the vote, compared to 8.7 percent for the runner up, Volodymyr Bondarenko of the Fatherland party, according to an exit poll conducted by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. For Kyiv City Council, the Solidarity Poroshenko Bloc stood at 28.0%, the Self-Reliance party at 10.3%, the Fatherland party at 10.1%, the Freedom nationalist party at 9.7% and the Unity party at 8.5%. Hennadiy Kernes is reported to have won Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, with a landslide, not requiring a second round runoff.

As expected, numerous incidents of fraud and errors were reported, with the Opora election-monitoring organization reporting 1,052 violations as of the close of elections. Violations included procedural errors such as voting precincts failing to open in time and voters participating without showing identification; the emergence of premarked, invalid, destroyed or stuffed ballots; and political parties transporting voters. The Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc party accused Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov and Odesa Regional Administration Head Mikheil Saakashvili of colluding in vote fraud. The Opposition Bloc also said it won’t recognize the results in those districts of the Kharkiv region where its candidates were denied the opportunity to compete.

Elections in numerous districts and even cities were entirely disrupted. The strategic port city of Mariupol (pre-war population 458,500), located near the separation line in the Donetsk region, canceled its elections after voting ballots were printed with many errors. Another Donetsk town, Kransoarmiysk (pre-war population 64,533) also canceled its elections after problems related to the printing and distribution of ballots. In the Luhansk region, the towns of Lysychansk (pre-war population 103,460) and Svatove (pre-war population 18,000) could not establish their results, with the looming threat that those in Severodonetsk (pre-war population 109,000) and Rubizhne (pre-war population 60,000) would also be canceled.

Zenon Zawada: The elections went largely as expected, through voter turnout was lower than what most observers projected.It’s too early to analyze the results of the political parties. But the strong performance of the Solidarity Poroshenko Bloc was expected, given that it’s the patronage party with access to administrative resources. Once they’re established, the final results for the Opposition Bloc in the southeastern regions will serve to indicate whether the pro-Western parties have made any gains in traditionally Russian-oriented territory.