You're reading: Mayors in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv heading to re-election (LIVE UPDATES)

Editor's Note: On Oct. 25 Ukrainians vote to elect mayors and other local officials who will get more taxing and spending authority as the nation decentralizes power. At least 26.7 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots on Oct. 25 in regional and local elections all over Ukraine, excluding Russian- annexed Crimea and embattled Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts; turnout is expected to be more than 60 percent. Voters will elect 10,000 mayors 160,000 members of oblast and local councils in what has been deemed as procedurally the most complicated local elections Ukraine has ever had. The final results are expected no earlier than on Oct. 28.

‘Now the battle is on for Dnipropetrovsk’

Oct. 25, 10:20 p.m. — The likelihood of a November runoff election between the Opposition Bloc’s Oleksandr Vilkul and Ukrop’s Borys Filatov will be a hard-fought one. “Now the battle is on for Dnpropetrovsk,” independent member of parliament and Ukrop supporter Andrey Denysenko told a press conference. “If there is a second round all the patriots must unit against the threat…Vilkul is a representative of the Kremlin’s 5th column.” — Isobel Koshiw

Exit poll: Kernes will be re-elected in landslide

Oct. 25, 9:30 p.m. — According to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine exit poll, Kharkiv Mayor Hennadiy Kernes, who leads the Revival Party, will breeze to re-election with 59.3 percent of the vote. Moreover, his party is slated to win 51.3 percent of the vote on the city council. The next closest competitor is Taras Sitenko of the Samopomich Party, with 16.4 percent, the same percentage for city council as well, according to the exit poll. — Olena Goncharova

Competing exit polls cloud Dnipropetrovsk results

Oct. 25, 9:25 p.m. — Numerous exit polls were carried out in Dnipropetrovsk. The high stakes and vested interests make it difficult to determine their objectivity. According to the Ukrainian Institute for Public Opinion Studies, the Opposition Bloc’s Oleksandr Vilkul is winning with 37.3 percent, followed by Ukrop’s Borys Filatov with 34.5 percent. However, SOCIS puts Filatov in the lead with 39.1 percent, followed by Vilkul with 33.1. If the exit polls are accurate, Vilkul and Filatov are heading for a runoff election in November. — Isobel Koshiw

Odesa mayor’s race headed for runoff between Trukhanov, Borovik

Oct. 25, 9:20 p.m. — Exit polls show that incumbent Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov will take 47.6 percent of the vote, not enough to avoid a runoff with Oleksandr Borovik, who got 30.8 percent. They were far ahead of the rest of the field. In the city council races, Trukhanov’s Trust in Deeds party is leading with 28.6 percent of the vote with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko traing with 20 percent and the Opposition Bloc in a strong third-place finish with 14.4 percent of the vote. — Oleg Sukhov

Sadovyi will breeze to re-election in Lviv

Oct. 25, 9:15 p.m. — According to an exit poll by TV Production Savik Shuster Studio, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi — who leads the Samopomich Party — will get 48.6 percent of the vote, far ahead of his second place competitor, Ruslan Koshulynsky of Svoboda Party with 14 percent. — Nataliya Trach

Incumbent mayor with Svoboda Party looks strong in Ternopil

Oct. 25, 9:10 p.m. In Ternopil, 46 percent of citizens voted as of 6 p.m., according to Opora election watchdog. Mayor Serhiy Nadal of the Svoboda Party is favored for re-election. The council will be split among Samopomich, Narodnyi Kontrol, Narodnyi Ruh, Ukrop and Svoboda.The chairwoman of the 155th polling station in Ternopil, Liudmyla Polishchuk, received frequent complaints from voters about the absence of party and candidate information in a corridor near the entrance to the polling station. Polishchuk said the information is useful. “My daughter asked me ‘How to vote?’ and I just said to her ‘What your heart says you,’” Polishchuk said. — Juliana Romanyshyn

Poll: Ternopil Mayor Nadal breezing to re-election

Oct. 25, 9:05 p.m. According to the civil exit poll, 59.9 percent of citizens of Ternopil voted to re-elect Mayor Serhiy Nadal (representative of Svoboda Party) to re-elect him again. 11.8 percent chose Taras Pastukh from Samopomich party, while Petro Landiak from Hromadska Pozytsiya occupied the third place, gaining 10.4 percent. The poll also shows that five parties can overcome the five percent threshold and have chanced to be elected to the Ternopil oblast council. Leading party Svoboda gains 34.4 percent, Samopomich Party gets 14.1 percent of voters, while Presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc gains 11.7 percent. — Juliana Romanyshyn

Klitschko far out in front for re-election as Kyiv mayor

Oct. 25, 9 p.m. According to the exit poll made by Social Monitoring Center NGO and commissioned the Committee of Voters of Ukraine watchdog, 40.4 percent of Kyivans voted for the current Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko to become a Kyiv mayor again. 8.7 percent of voters want to see Volodymyr Bondarenko, the former head of Kyiv City administration and member of Fatherland Party as Kyiv mayor while former Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko takes the third place in the Kyiv mayor race and gets 8.1 percent of voters. The poll shows that only five political parties can overcome the five percent threshold and have chanced to be elected to the Kyiv city council. Presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc with 28.3 percent of voters gains the biggest popularity among Kyivans. Samopomich Party gets 10.3 percents of voters, 10.1 percent of Kyivans want to see Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party in the city council. Meanwhile, righ-wing Svoboda gets 9.7 percent of the votes, while Yednist party of former Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko received 8.5 percent of the votes. — Nataliya Trach

Poll: Ternopil Mayor Nadal breezing to re-election

Oct. 25, 8:49 p.m. – According to the civil exit poll “Conducting public exit poll in Ternopil in 2015,” 59.9 percent of citizens of Ternopil voted for the current mayor Serhiy Nadal (representative of Svoboda party) to re-elect him again. 11.8 percent chose Taras Pastukh from Samopomich party, while Petro Landiak from Hromadska Pozytsiya occupied the third place, gaining 10.4 percent. The poll also shows that five parties can overcome the five percent threshold and have chanced to be elected to the Ternopil oblast council. Leading party Svoboda gains 34.4 percent, Samopomich Party gets 14.1 percent of voters, while Presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc gains 11.7 percent. — Juliana Romanyshyn

Klitschko far out in front for re-election as Kyiv mayor

Oct. 25, 8:10 p.m. – According to the exit poll made by Social Monitoring Center NGO and commissioned the Committee of Voters of Ukraine watchdog, 40.4 percent of Kyivans voted for the current Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko to become a Kyiv mayor again. 8.7 percent of voters want to see Volodymyr Bondarenko, the former head of Kyiv City administration and member of Fatherland Party as Kyiv mayor while former Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko takes the third place in the Kyiv mayor race and gets 8.1 percent of voters. The poll shows that only five political parties can overcome the five percent threshold and have chanced to be elected to the Kyiv city council. Presidential Petro Poroshenko Bloc with 28.3 percent of voters gains the biggest popularity among Kyivans. Samopomich Party gets 10.3 percents of voters, 10.1 percent of Kyivans want to see Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party in the city council. Meanwhile, righ-wing Svoboda gets 9.7 percent of the votes, while Yednist party of former Kyiv mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko received 8.5 percent of the votes. Nataliya Trach

Dnipropetrovsk sentiment: ‘Nothing will change unless the system changes’

Oct. 25, 7:41 p.m. – Irina Ivanova, an independent election observer at a polling station in the east of the city, said numbers fluctuated throughout the day but concluded that the turnout had been “medium”. OPORA, a civil society organization which monitors elections, reported a 33.7 percent at 4 p.m. The numbers across Ukraine have been similar or even smaller and experts say this reflects an increasingly disillusioned electorate. Even some who voted felt their vote made no difference. Pensioner Viachyslav Lupanos told Kyiv Post outside a polling station in central Dnipropertrovsk that “One candidate can’t make any difference. Nothing will change unless the system changes. It can either change at the top – political will- or from the bottom”. Isobel Koshiw

Survey: Svoboda Party members least educated, Poroshenko’s bloc most educated

Oct. 25, 6:54 p.m. – Svoboda nationalist party has the biggest number of people without higher education – 140 members or 33 percent, reads the findings of Ukrainska Pravda website. The greatest number of educated members are in President Petro Poroshenko’s Solidarnist party and Batkivshyna with 97 and 96 percent respectively. Oleh Liashko Radical party and Svoboda both have the greatest number of unemployed people among 132 parties that take part in the local elections. At least 19.2 percent of jobless Svoboda party members hope to get their seats in city and oblast councils on the party tickets. According to the Central Election Comission, the oldest candidate to get a seat at the local council – 93-year-old man – was registered in Zhytomyr Oblast. The youngest one – 18-year-old candidate – hopes to get a seat in Sumy oblast council. In Kyiv Oblast, 79-year-old candidate is running to get a mayoral post in the town of Rzhyshchiv. Olena Goncharova

Polling station in the school during Local Elections in Kyiv on Oct. 25.

Polling station in the school during local elections in Kyiv on Oct. 25.

Poroshenko votes

Oct. 25, 6:39 p.m. – Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko arrived at one of Kyiv polling station with high hopes regarding elections outcome. “We voted so Kyiv could be a real European city,” Poroshenko says. “It’s important to have pro-Ukrainian coalitions in the local councils. We should give no chance to the enemy to destabilize the situation (in the country).” Poroshenko says the situation with the disruptions of elections in the cities of Mariupol and Krasnoarmyisk is “unacceptable” and ordered to make amendments to the law so the elections will take place in this cities “this year.”
Yuriy Lutsenko, a leader of the pro-presidential bloc, says the parliamentary coalition will hold an emergency meeting Oct. 26 to rule the decision on when to hold the elections in the strategic port city of Mariupol.Olena Goncharova

Yatsenyuk admits confusion while voting

Oct. 25, 4:51 p.m. – Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk believes the local elections should solve the problems on the local level, because the government has allocated “billions of resources” to the local councils. “I hope that state roads, schools and hospitals should be renewed and fixed after these elections,” Yatsenyuk said. He also hopes that the election commissions will try to bring down the number of violations on Election Day. “The Interior Ministry together with the number of civic organizations, including OPORA elections watchdog, teamed up to prevent violations, as the main problems would start during the vote count,” Yatsenyuk explained to the journalists after casting his ballot. Yatsenyuk also admitted he is confused with the new law. “I analyzed the ballots and surprisingly instead of (proportional system with) open lists of candidates I saw that political parties mostly prevail,” the prime minister said. — Olena Goncharova

Confused, enthusiastic electorate in Dnipropetrovsk

Oct. 25, 3:46 p.m. – Voters are facing queues at the polling stations in central Dnipropetrovsk, which doesn’t seem to diminish their electoral enthusiasm. Yevelina Yefrimova-Kononenko, an artist, says, “the most important thing was for Dnipropetrovsk to have peace. I am grateful to (Gennady) Korban, (Borys) Filatov (of Ukrop) and his team for peace because it could have been like the Donbas here”. But some support former Dnipropetrovsk Oblast governor and Viktor Yanukovych ally Oleksandr Vilkul as they want predictability. “He developed the infrastructure. They all steal but at least he did a lot for the city. There was order”, says Alexey Sinchuk, a potter.Isobel Koshiw

20 percent vote by noon in Dnipropetrovsk

Oct. 25, 3:01 p.m. – Stanislav Zholudev of Voters’ Commitee of Ukraine says as of 12 a.m., 20 percent of Dnipropetrovsk voters went to the polling stations. In terms of violations, he noted that 10 percent of polling stations failed to open on time because of the situation with the ballots. He also noted the fact that candidates had continued to campaign in the city by taking away posters with their faces and leaving party slogans written in familiar party colors. Isobel Koshiw


Dnipropetrovsk hidden promo

Election day advertising in Dnipropetrovsk in colors and style similar to those used by the Opposition Bloc.


Dnipropetrovsk hidden promo

Election day advertising in Dnipropetrovsk in colors and style similar to those used by Ukrop.

Good turnout in Kyiv’s Holosiyivsky

Oct. 25, 2:30 p.m. – Maria Adrianova, an observer at one of the polling stations in Kyiv’s Holosiyivsky district, says the voting process is rather active. “Traditionally older people arrive in the morning, while younger ones vote mostly at the second part of the day. Since 1 p.m. people have been heading to the station constantly.” Adrianova says no violations were reported so far, but older people often ask the election commission members to point out the name of the candidate they want to vote for in the ballot. “But in this case we just give them glasses,” she adds. Olena Goncharova

Ballot violation in Kyiv’s Obolon district

Oct. 25, 2:13 p.m. – Observers at one of the polling stations in Kyiv’s Obolon district on Geroiv Stalingrada, 58B noticed a member of the election commission, representing Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, handed out 10 ballots to voters without taking their signatures, member of that election commission Oleksandr Panchenko told the Kyiv Post. The member who was caught with the offence is now being questioned by the police. If he is charged and found guilty, he could face from five to seven years in jail, according to Panchenko. — Nataliya Trach

Vote cancelled in Mariupol, Krasnoarmiysk after ballots questioned

Oct. 25, 1:49 p.m. – The election process was disrupted in eastern Ukrainian cities of Mariupol and Krasnoarmisk. In Krasnoarmisk, home to 76,000 residents, the polling stations were closed as of 8 a.m. as the election commission members found mistakes in the number of the ballots. After fixing the ballots, the election commission members failed to print them out overnight on Oct. 24, as the fixed copies hadn’t been saved, local media reported. Mykhailo Okhendovsky, who heads Central Election Commission, said that Krasnoarmiisk polling stations should open by 6 p.m the latest and accept the new ballots that were printed in the nearby Kramatorsk, threatening the commission’s members of criminal prosecution for disruption of the elections. Some 7 out of 37 polling stations work in Krasnoarmiisk, according to Okhendovsky. He says it’s “important” to hold elections in both Mariupol and Krasnoarmiisk today. “If the elections didn’t take place, those responsible would face up to 7 years in prison,” Okhendovsky said.

Opora elections watchdog reports nearly 947 violations during the voting in the local elections as of 1 p.m. “In particular, there were 509 cases of illegal political advertising, 273 reports about bribery of voters, 26 cases of administrative abuse, seven incidents with dissemination of false information , and one case of damage of bulletins,” reads the map. At least 11 polling stations in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia and one station in eastern Ukrainian Sumy opened without voting booths, non-government Committee of Voters of Ukraine reports. The voters marked their ballots on the window seals, which violates the law. — Olena Goncharova

Only 50 percent expected in one Obolon polling station

Oct. 25, 1:22 p.m – In Kyiv’s Obolon district deputy head of a polling station Mykola Karpenko says that “as of noon 15.8 percent of the registered voters or 186 people have voted”. He expects voter turnout to reach 50 percent by 8 p.m. when polling stations close. Lyudmyla Lukovenko, who voted in Obolon today, does not believe these elections will change anything for the better, but she came to vote “to fulfill her civil duty and to make sure no one uses her ballot”. She said she voted for candidates for Kyiv mayor from Solidarity (Klitschko) and also a candidate for Kyiv city council from Solidarity. — Nataliya Trach

Odesa mayoral race shapes up as battle between Trukhanov, Borovik

Oct. 25, 12:20 p.m. – In the Odesa mayoral election, major contenders are incumbent Mayor Hennady Trukhanov and Sasha Borovik, an aide to Odesa Oblast
Governor Mikheil Saakashvili.
At Odesa’s polling station 511278, Many Trukhanov supporters
attributed their choice to infrastructure improvements made under the mayor.
“He has improved roads and children’s
playgrounds,” Tatyana, a middle-aged economist, told the Kyiv Post.
Those who chose Borovik said that he was the only candidate
who can carry out reforms and that they supported Saakashvili’s team.
“Only Borovik can break the system,” said Iryna, a
55-year old businesswoman.
Voters were reluctant to give their last names for fear of
reprisals. — Oleg Sukhov

No voting in Mariupol

Oct. 25, 11:14 a.m. – The polling stations in Ukraine’s south-eastern town of Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, failed to open, as the majority of town’s elections commission’s members refused to accept the ballots finding mistakes in some of them. The commission’s members from post-Maidan parties spent the night at Priazovsky Rabochy printing house, which belongs to oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, to avoid distribution of them to the polling stations. Read the story here.Oksana Grytsenko

Mistakes in Dnipropetrovsk ballots

Oct. 25, 11:10 a.mProblems with voting ballots are reported in Dnipropetrovsk. According to Denys Davydov from OPORA Dnipropetrovsk, there was a mistake made and the ballots given to voters don’t match the standard ballots. The Central Election Commission has had to specifically declare the ballots printed in Dnipropetrovsk valid but Davydov fears that people could use the fact during the voting process to declare some ballots invalid. Meanwhile, Stanislav Zholudev,director of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, also said the main problems have been technical ones and some polling stations didn’t have enough ballots. — Isobel Koshiw