Ukraine parliament can work despite vote count trouble, election chair says

Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) Head Mykhaylo Okhendovskiy said on Nov. 9 that he has received threats following the commission’s decision to order recounts of the parliamentary vote for a single-mandate district in the Dnipropetrovsk region and another in the Donetsk region. “These decisions prompted an immediate reaction from falsifiers,” Okhendovskiy said in a statement. “In various forms, we began to receive ‘convincing requests’ to stop and direct threats.” He identified as being responsible Igor Kolomoisky, the oligarch who currently serves as the Dnipropetrovsk oblast state administration. In his turn, Kolomoisky declined to address the claim directlyand hinted he has proof that Okhendovskiy took a bribe for a decision reached in the election.

The CEC announced on Nov. 7 that it has processed all the vote protocols in the election list voting of the Oct. 26 early parliamentary election. The People’s Front party earned 22.1 percent of the vote, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc earned 21.8 percent, the Self-Reliance party earned 11.0 percent, the Opposition Bloc earned 9.4 percent, Oleh Liashko’s Radical Party earned 7.4 percent and the Fatherland party earned 5.6 percent. The CEC will officially recognize these results on Nov. 10, Okhendovskiy said.

The CEC has been able to recognize the voting results of 160 out of 198 single-mandate districts. When accounting for both election list and single-mandate voting, the Poroshenko Bloc earned 132 mandates for parliament, the People’s Front earned 82 mandates, the Self-Reliance party earned 53 mandates, the Opposition Bloc earned 29 mandates, the Radical Party earned 22 mandates and the Fatherland party earned 19 mandates. Elections for single-mandate districts couldn’t be held in 27 districts: 12 in Crimeaand the city of Sevastopol, nine in the Donetsk region and six in the Luhansk region.

Despite recounts ongoing in 38 single-mandate elections, the parliament is able to begin working, Okhendovskiy assured the public at a Nov. 9 press briefing. Parliament is considered to have authority when two-thirds of its members are elected, or 300 MPs, he said.

Zenon Zawada: Indeed these elections had their fair share of scandal, which was downplayed due to the mere fact they were held relatively successfully amid an ongoing war and economic trouble. This isn’t the first scandal involving Kolomoisky, who has been throwing his weight around after securing control over much of southern Ukraine since the war erupted. Given that he has a tight alliance with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and given his key role in Ukraine’s military defense on its eastern front, Kolomoisky will be able to get away with a lot of alleged abuses.

Although parliament is ready to work, it won’t begin to do so until a coalition agreement emerges. We expect a coalition to emerge with a clear agreement and plan for reform by Dec. 1, as indicated by Vice Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.