You're reading: Kyiv’s hot races: Fraud mars nation’s slowest vote count

Three days after the polling stations shut down, district 223 in Kyiv still has not established a winner of the race. According to the Central Election Commission, this is the slowest count in the country, with only 73.26 percent of votes counted by 7 p.m. on Oct. 31. Late in the evening, underscore the tension, special police forces arrived to keep order.

The race is
on between Viktor Pylypyshyn, ex-head of the Shevchenko district in Kyiv, and
young Svoboda Party activist Yuriy Levchenko. As of 7 p.m., Pylypyshyn leads
with 28.54 percent while Levchenko is behind by around 300 votes with 27.46
percent.

Hundreds of
people are waiting outside for the count, including a dozen Pylypyshyn supporters
and more than 100 right-wing Svoboda party activists. The police guard the
entrance and clashes erupt from time to time as groups of unknown men try to
break in.
 

Inside the building,
in a small stuffy hall, the count is ongoing. Exhausted heads of the polling
stations, who brought their boxes with ballots, sit in the hall waiting.

District election comission number 223 is counting votes as ballot boxes pile up in front of them. (Svitlana Tuchynska)

“On Monday
morning I have arrived with boxes, but since there was a huge line I took them
back to the polling station. Then, Tuesday I come again, and the server does
not work, so they do not accept ballots. Now, I have spent six hours in the
commission today. This is a madhouse,” says Valentyna Nechytailo, head of one
of the polling stations in the district.

The
district election commission says the problems is technical – first the server
which sends information to the Central Election Commission did not work, then
many ballots had to be recounted because of many mistakes with protocols. 

But the CEC
says they caught fraud.

The CEC established
that the results of vote count sent to them are different from the protocols.
While one protocol had 157 votes for Pylypyshyn, the number that was sent to
CEC was 197. Another protocol had 310 votes for Pylypyshyn but 350 went to the CEC’s
server. A third protocol showed 277 votes for Pylypyshyn but 427 went to CEC.

Earlier
today deputy head of CEC Andriy Mahera arrived in the commission and spoke to
its members reminding them of criminal responsibility for electoral fraud. 

 “The problem is the pro-Party of Regions
candidate Pylypyshyn does not want to acknowledge that he lost. Those ballots
which have more votes for Levchenko are sent for recount,” says Svoboda member
Ihor Miroshnychenko.

“During the
recount they might damage my ballots, and then find them spoiled and not count
them at all,” says Levchenko. He has all the protocols and says that, according to them, he wins with more than 900 votes.  

Pylypyshyn
was not present during the count and has not made any statements.

He is a
businessman owning several greenhouses and tea brands. He is also a member of
the Volodymyr Lytvyn’s People Party. A former member of parliament, he quit to
be a head of the Shevchenko district in Kyiv.

Yuriy
Levchenko is a 28-year-old head of the analytical department of Svoboda Party.  

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be
reached at [email protected]