Ukraine election for parliament seat mired by violations

A fiercely contested election was held on July 26 for a parliamentary seat representing a single-mandate district in the Chernihiv region. Serhiy Berezenko of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc leads with 36 percent, followed by Gennady Korban of the Ukrop party with 15 percent, the Central Election Commission (CEC) reported today after tallying 93 percent of votes cast. Berezenko earned 31 percent of votes, compared to 17 percent for Korban, according to on an exit poll hired by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU), which is funded by Western NGOs. The voter turnout rate was 35 percent, the CEC said. 

Dozens of election violations were reported in the campaigning, as well as on Election Day itself. Leading up to the vote, candidates were recorded distributing cash and food to voters. On the eve of elections, authorities uncovered rubber stamps that were exact copies of those used by election commissions, reported MP Igor Lutsenko of the Fatherland party. President Poroshenko referred to such campaign violations a disgrace in a television interview.

On Election Day itself, alleged violations included voting carousels (for ballot-stuffing), picture-taking of ballots (for vote-buying), direct vote-buying, election observers barred from polling stations and the presence of unauthorized individuals (reported to be thugs and pseudo-journalists), reported the CVU and Opora, the leading election monitoring organizations. Regional police reported receiving 50 complaints of election violations, said the pravda.com.ua news site.

The CEC determined the violations weren’t enough to invalidate results. The voting at the district’s 83 polling stations occurred in conformity with election law and without significant violations, said CEC Chair Mykhaylo Okhenkovskiy on the night of the vote.

Zenon Zawada: Although the election was for a single parliamentary seat, it was the first held under the new Cabinet of Ministers and unfortunately failed to uphold international standards, based on the extensive reporting of election observers. A key factor was the election being held in a destitute region of Ukraine during a time of war, making the local population very vulnerable to payments for their votes, as well as their services in committing fraud.

We are confident Ukrainian democracy is on the right track otherwise and this election is an outlier, largely because of the extreme conditions the country finds itself in. For instance, the October parliamentary elections were found to be in full conformity with global standards. Meanwhile, Poroshenko said he’d submit legislation to introduce harsher penalties for vote-buying.

The other takeaway is that the rivalry remains vicious between the Poroshenko team and Ukrop, a political party launched by the president’s fiercest opponent, Igor Kolomoisky. The election results indicate that Kolomoisky has a long way to go in building a political party that can challenge the Poroshenko political machine that has emerged. Hopefully, their competition will stay within the election field and courts and not involve the use of force, as had been demonstrated by Kolomoisky in late March.