Two exit polls commissioned for election
Two private companies will conduct exit polls in the Oct. 31 local elections in which an estimated 28 million people will cast their votes across the nation to elect their town and city mayors as well as oblast, city, town and village council members.
Gfk Ukraine, a subsidiary of a global market research company, will conduct a nationwide poll of 29,000 voters in 550 polling stations to gauge the rating of political parties and to predict separate oblast council election results in nine regions: Kyiv, Volyn, Zakarpattya, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Rivne, Khmelnytsky, Cherkassy and Chernihiv.
The company will also provide exit poll results for five mayoral races in Donetsk, Kharkiv, Uzhgorod, Chernivtsi and Khmelnytsky.
The voter survey is being commissioned by Yedyniy Tsentr (United Center), a political party run by Viktor Baloha, who was former President Viktor Yushchenko’s chief-of-staff. It’s costing Baloha more than $100,000, according to Ihor Popov, a high-ranking member of the party and former official in Yushchenko’s presidential administration. “Although Yedyniy Tsentr is commissioning the exit poll, the party is ordering the poll to protect the [election] results of all political parties and candidates, and to promote fair elections in Ukraine. The results will be made public immediately after polling stations close,” Popov said.
Independent Channel 5 TV station will broadcast the exit poll results 10 p.m. on election night as part of its televised election marathon that started on Oct. 22.
Meanwhile Sociological Rating Group, a Lviv-based market research and polling firm, will poll voters in Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil . It will provide results for the city council and mayoral races of the three western Ukrainian cities.
Exit polls are used as a tool to predict the outcome of an election. In developing democracies they’re used as a check against and indicator of the degree of election fraud.
Lawmakers to vote on opening up public information essential to democracy
Ukraine’s parliament is scheduled to vote for a public access to information bill that has failed to pass twice this year.
The legislation will require all government agencies and institutions on a local and national level to fully disclose their organizational structure, missions, functions, authority, main tasks, working and financial resources, including budget funds and spending procedures.
It stipulates what can and cannot be considered a state secret or confidential and foresees a body that will monitor and have violations in place for not disclosing information. It simplifies the procedures for obtaining public information and allows for telephone, e-mail, faxed and mailed requests. Requests for information must be answered within five instead of the 30 days now in place. It also provides protection to informers and whistleblowers who disclose information whose public interest outweighs that of the state.
The bill, which the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has urged Ukraine to pass in accordance with its 2005 signed obligations to that institution, would be a key democratic milestone for Ukraine.
President Viktor Yanukovych has repeatedly promised PACE and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that he would sign and ensure the bill passes.
The Yanukovych-aligned Party of Regions postponed a reading of the right to information bill earlier this month in parliament.
If the Nov. 2 parliamentary vote fails, this initiative will be shelved for the immediate future.
Ukraine has already postponed to Jan. 1 the date when a package of European-sponsored anti-corruption laws was supposed to enter force. The anti-corruption bill is part of Ukraine’s obligation before the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), which it joined in 2006.
Earlier this month, Drago Kos, the president of GRECO said that his organization sees no improvement in Ukraine’s efforts to fight corruption.
“Any real fight against corruption is not noticeable. Some institutions are created and that’s it. It looks as though something is being done, but in fact nothing is happening,” he said.
More than half the countries of the world have not yet adopted so called “right to information” laws and many that have done so have failed to implement them adequately, according to Article 19, a British freedom of expression and information organization.
IMF coming to Ukraine; future lending at stake
A mission from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit Ukraine on Nov. 3-15 to hold discussions as part of the first review of a $15.5 stand-by loan agreed late in July 2010, Interfax reported.
“An IMF mission headed by Thanos Arvanitis will visit Ukraine on Nov. 3-15 to conduct discussions on the first review of the [loan program],” said Max Alier, the IMF representative in Ukraine.
The loan was approved on July 29, with the first installment of $1 billion already received and the next one of $1.5 billion expected in November.
Ukraine needs billions of dollars in loans to stay financially afloat because of the lingering effects of the global economic crisis, in which gross domestic product dropped 15 percent last year. Government finances are still precarious. As a condition for the loan, the IMF is demanding that Ukraine raise its eligible pension age, which now stands at 55 for women and 60 for men. The lender also wants greater transparency in the operation of the nation’s notoriously opaque state-run energy monopolies, such as an end to natural gas subsidies to households.
The Ukrainian government is Eastern Europe’s number one recipient of financial aid since the global financial meltdown started to emerge in late 2007.
