You're reading: Most winners of parliament by-elections already known

Ukrainians voted to elect seven new members of parliament in by-elections on July 17.

Although the count still goes on, the winners are clear in all but one of the constituencies. The backstage winners of the election are oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky and Batkivshchyna party leader Yulia Tymoshenko – each of them getting two new representatives in parliament.

The count was obstructed and stopped at 8 percent in the most troubled constituency — in eastern Luhansk Oblast, close to territories occupied by Kremlin-backed separatists.

The seven seats across the country became vacant after the lawmakers elected in these districts switched to positions in the Cabinet of Ministers or were elected as city mayors in the local elections of 2015. In Volyn Oblast, the elected lawmaker, businessman Ihor Yeremeyev, was killed in a horse-riding accident in 2015.

Meet the winners

In Dnipropetrovsk, independent Tetiana Rychkova won the seat in parliament (44 percent of the votes). Before 2014, Rychkova used to run a business, but when Russia started its war against Ukraine in Donbas, she dedicated herself to raising money to buy army supplies. She was later hired by the Defense Ministry. Rychkova also lost her husband in the war.

Rychkova was endorsed by the previous representative of this constituency, Borys Filatov, who was elected as Dnipro’s mayor in October.

In Volyn Oblast, Iryna Konstankevych won with the highest result of the election – 57 percent of the vote (the count is 95 percent complete). Konstankevych represents Ukrop – a party started in Dnipropetrovsk and sponsored by oligarch Kolomoisky. Prior to the election, Konstankevych used to work as deputy head of a charity fund of Ihor Palytsya, Kolomoisky’s ally.

Another representative of Ukrop is just ahead in the vote in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. Viktor Shevchenko is the director of Bugil – a company based in Yaremche that apparently owns skiing infrastructure. Local media reported that Shevchenko is the brother of Oleksandr Shevchenko, the director of the Bukovel Ski Resort, which is owned by Kolomoisky.

If true, it means that the election in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast was a battle of brothers, as Shevchenko’s main competitor was Serhiy Nasalyk, the brother of Energy Minister Ihor Nasalyk and the mayor of Rohatyn, a city in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast. With the count 96 percent complete, Shevchenko had 21.3 percent of the vote, while Nasalyk was behind with 19.3 percent.

Representatives of Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna party won two seats, meaning that the opposition faction will grow to 21 members in parliament.

Batkivshchyna representative Ruslan Bogdan won in Poltava Oblast and Yuriy Odarchenko in Kherson Oblast. Odarchenko, a Kherson businessman, was running against Illya Kiva, the scandalous former head of the nation’s drug-fighting police. Odarchenko won 25 percent of the vote, ahead of the independent Kiva and representatives of all the major parties.

In Chernihiv, hopes of re-election were dashed for Yehor Firsov, who was expelled from parliament for criticizing his old faction – the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko. Firsov tried to regain his seat and ran independently in Chernihiv, but lost to Maksym Mykytas, the owner of a construction company, who is close to the presidential team. With the count 97 percent complete, Firsov has only 4 percent of the vote, while Mykytas is winning with 31 percent.

 

Dirty elections

Numerous violations were recorded during the campaign and on the election day. The vote count was obstructed in constituency No. 114 in Luhansk Oblast. Most of the members of the local election committee left the office, making it impossible for the committee to accept the voting bulletins for the count. The representatives of Opora election watchdog suggested that the committee members faced pressure from the candidates and declared the incident an attempt to disrupt the election.

The main competitors in the problematic district are Serhiy Shahov, the candidate from Our Land (Nash Kray), a party seen by many observers as close to the presidential administration,

Borys Lebedev from the Opposition Bloc, a party formed by the former allies of ousted ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, and independent Valery Moshenskiy.

The district center is Stanytsia Luhanska, a city suffering from frequent shelling, located near separatists-controlled parts of Luhansk Oblast.

Violations were recorded in other places, too.

Opora reported that many candidates attempted to bribe voters using cash or presents. In Dnipro, the voters were given free tickets to a local aquapark. In Kherson Oblast, voters were provided with free transport to take them from distant villages to polling stations.

“Such activities by the candidates could have a critical impact on the results of the vote,” reads a statement by Opora.

In all seven constituencies, Opora saw representatives of the voting committees trying to give out ballot papers to voters without proper IDs.

In Dnipro, a person with the same name as the campaign’s leader – Tetiana Rychkova – enrolled in the election to confuse voters. She won 1.5 percent of the vote.