These are the hottest, dirtiest single-mandate races

As widely anticipated, the fight for half the legislature’s 450 seats was the fiercest and dirtiest in single-mandate constituencies. Because of their local nature, international and local observers saw these races as being highly susceptible to widespread abuse of government resources in favor of pro-presidential candidates, intimidation of candidates, journalists and observers, voter bribing and tampering with vote tabulations.

Vote counts commenced slowly where pro-presidential
candidates faced opposition opponents in tight races.

Bottlenecks appeared at district election commissions that
delayed the process of accepting tabulated results from precinct election
commission heads. Election watchdog OPORA reported also that many precinct
commission heads started to re-write their tabulated results before submitting
them for processing. The same was witnessed by opposition party observers.

Election authorities blamed the huge delays on faulty or
slow computer technical problems. Nevertheless, suspicion of vote tampering
ensued with each passing hour and day. Some precinct commission heads had to
wait up to 72 hours before submitting their results to district election
commission officials, often without food and under sleep deprivation.

The situation called for vigilance and civic mobilization on
the part of opposition candidates. As of 1:10 p.m. today, vote counting was
still under way for 15 races.

Ukraine’s capital was the battleground for five of the
11 hot races described below. Two contests in Kyiv Oblast were also highly
contentious, as were duels in Vinnytsia, Mykolayiv, Volyn and Cherkassy
oblasts.

Ideology trumps money and incumbency

Who: Andriy Illienko (Svoboda) vs. Halyna Herera
(independent)

Illienko is a 25-year old Svoboda party activist. Herera is
the Kyiv City Council secretary and acting mayor of Kyiv. A multi-millionaire,
Herera and her husband who won a parliamentary seat in Khmelnytsky Oblast, run
Epicenter, a chain of home improvement stores. She was perceived to be friendly
with the pro-presidential Party of Regions.

What happened:

This race in Kyiv’s Troyeshchyna area was as ugly as
the residential district in which it was held.

After scuffles with police, fears of election fraud and a
ballot recount, the district election commission here finally concluded at 4
a.m. on Oct. 31 that Svoboda activist Andriy Illienko prevailed by a narrow
vote count.

The vote count dragged on beyond 48 hours. At one point on Oct. 30, Illienko
noticed that election officials had mixed up the results by
entering Herera’s name in first, whereas his name belonged there. A vote
count followed that showed Illienko had won in the disputed precinct.

In the end, the vote recount confirmed Svoboda’s allegation of votes
being counted wrongly and the Central Election Commission immediately corrected
the official election figures for that district on its website.

Think tank analyst bests former Kyiv city council speaker

Who: Viktor Chumak (UDAR) vs. Oles Dovhiy
(independent)

Chumak is a career think tank analyst and heads the Ukrainian Institute of
Public Policy, a non-governmental policy
research center.

Dovhiy served as Kyiv City Council speaker under Mayor Leonid
Chernovetsky’s time in office. Dovhiy’s father,
Stanislav, is an incumbent member of parliament. While
in office, Dovhyi presided over a city council that
passed many controversial laws that led to suspicious land privatizations,
including city park and forestland.

What happened: With 88 percent of the votes
officially in on Oct. 31, former Kyiv City Council secretary Oles Dovhiy
conceded defeat to Viktor Chumak of Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian
Democratic Alliance for Reforms in the capital’s Dnipro district.

Initially the race was close, as the lead position changed
back and forth. Tabulated results trickled in at snail pace. In the early
stages, only a few hundred votes separated the two.

The slow pace in the counting sparked suspicions of
fraud. Dozens of precinct election district members were forced to wait more than 24 hours in corridors with
their ballot boxes as the votes were being counted.

Chumak said that based on the copies of tabulated results
that he and the rest of the candidates received, he had
5,200 more votes than Dovhyi.  However, many damaged
boxes with ballots were sent for a recount. According to Chumak, all the
damaged boxes contained ballots whose totals favored him. For more than 48
hours Chumak and his party supporters remained vigilant and monitored
activities until it became clear he had won.

Rich local squeezes past opposition candidate

Who: Stepan Ivakhiv (independent) vs. Ihor Huz,
Batkivshchyna, Volyn Oblast council

A local activist, Ihor Huz is a 30-year old Volyn Oblast
Council member. Stepan Ivakhiv is a multimillionaire who co-owns more than 300 gas
stations with longtime friend and business partner Ihor Yeremeyev. Yeremeyev
also won a single-mandate seat in Volyn Oblast. Both are affiliated with the
Party of Regions.

What happened: OPORA watchdog observed tabulated
results from precinct election commissions being re-written on the premises of
the district election commission. The group also noted that the tabulated
results weren’t properly packaged. On Oct. 29, as the vote count dragged
on with he and Ivakhiv constantly changing leads, Huz started a hunger strike
at the district election commission in protest of the alleged vote tampering.

Despite this, Ivakhiv came out on top.

Incumbent lawmakers go head to head

Who: Kseniya Lyapina (Batkivshchyna) vs. Oleksandr
Suprunenko (independent)

Lyapina earned a reputation as a small and medium size
advocate in the civil society sector. She switched to Batkivshchyna from Our
Ukraine in this election. Suprunenko was a Kyiv City Council member before
becoming a Party of Regions lawmaker. His brother, also a former Kyiv City
Council member, is wanted by authorities on charges of assault.

What happened: The vote count dragged on. Lyapina
burrowed herself at the district election commission to keep a watchful eye. At
one point, she said, “they’re trying to bid for time in order to
tamper with the vote.” At one point on Oct. 31, the head of one precinct
commission disappeared all day with an official election stamp.

When she finally won, after more than 72 hours,
Lyapina’s opponent filed a motion in court to conduct a re-count in 48
election precincts. The court ruled in his favor. However, Lyapina successfully
appealed.

High stakes in small yet strategic Kyiv Oblast town

Who: Viacheslav Kutovy (Batkivshchyna) vs. Petro
Melnyk (Party of Regions)

Melnyk is a Party of Regions lawmaker and head of the
nation’s Tax Academy in Irpin, Kyiv Oblast. Kutovy is the owner of a
small chain of gas stations who declared an income of less than $1,200 in 2011.

What happened: Melnyk was the subject of pre-election
allegations that accused him of abusing his position as the head of the
nation’s Tax Academy here in Irpin. He was accused of coercing his
students to vote for him and of handing out computers to area schools. Only a
third of tabulated results in this district were tabulated by the second day
after elections. Suspicion of fraud ran high. Election officials began sending
back results for clarification from precinct election heads. Fights ensued.
UDAR’s candidate started to assist Kutovy’s people to monitor the
vote count. As of 1:10 p.m., 83.14 percent of votes were counted in
Kutoviy’s favor.

Slowest vote count in Kyiv

Who: Viktor Pylypyshyn (independent) vs. Yuriy
Levchenko (Svoboda)

Vikroe Pylypyshyn is the head of Kyiv’s Shevchenko District
Administration, and failed numerous times to win the mayoral seat. He is perceived
to be the pro-government candidate, as a member of Speaker Volodymyr
Lytvyn’s People’s Party. He also is a successful business man who
owns several greenhouses and brands of tea. Yuriy Levhcenko, 28, heads Svoboda’s
analytical department.

What happened: Tension is high here as the vote count
is in its fourth day. The Central Election Commission said it has evidence of
fraud at this election district. The results the permanent election body has
electronically received from the election district differs from the tabulated
results. For example, one protocol had 157 votes for Pylypyshyn, while the
number 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. The vote count is ongoing.

Vote recount demanded in court

Who: Serhiy Teryokhin (Batkivshchyna) vs. Ihor Lysov
(Party of Regions)

Lysov is a Party of Regions lawmaker. Teryokin is a veteran
lawmaker for Batkivshchyna.

What happened:

Vote counting was slow from the start, but when Lysov saw
that he was falling behind, he demanded a vote count of 28 election precincts
on Oct. 31 in the courts. When the courts ruled in Lysov’s favor, the
opposition appealed on Nov. 1. The work of the district election commission has
been frozen since.

Town of Brovary gets dirty

Who: Pavlo Rizanenko (UDAR) vs. Mykola Semenyaka
(independent)

Pavlo Rizanenko is a former investment banker, turned civic
activist. An Afghan War veteran, Mykola Semenyaka is district councilman of a town in
Kyiv Oblast.

What happened: Rizanenko faced trouble during the
election campaign. Billboards and literature were distributed blackening his
name. The validity of his candidacy was challenged in court. But he ran and the
vote count was slow from the beginning. Market researcher GfK’s exit poll
showed that Rizanenko had won, as did Rizanenko’s UDAR party’s
parallel vote count. Nevertheless, once polls closed on Oct. 28, a group of
young men took over the district election commission building. They blocked the
entrance with a fence and didn’t let anybody inside. Fights broke out with
journalists. Then Vitaliy Klitschko arrived with Hanne Severinsen, the former rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe. They calmed the situation down and started monitoring the vote
tabulations. 

The old switcheroo

Who: Vitaliy Travianko (Party of Regions) vs. Andriy
Kornatsky (Batkivshchyna)

Vitaliy Travianko is a member of the Party of Regions and deputy
head of the Mykolayiv Oblast State Administration. Andriy Kornatsky is a local
activist and head of the Rural Front civil society organization.

What happened: The whopper was when the Central
Election Commission listed Kornatsky the victor on Oct. 30. But a few hours
later, Kornatsky’s name was replaced by the runner-up candidate,
Travianko with with the same figures showing for first and second place.

In addition to the usual delays in vote counting, the
opposition says a number of procedures weren’t followed that further
fueled suspicions of vote tampering. District election commission officials
weren’t publicizing how many election protocols they had and were
receiving from precinct commissions. Vote counts were being made based on
Central Election Commission data, not on the stamped protocols received from
precincts. The protocols weren’t packaged safely for safe transport to
the Central Election Commission.

Voter tampering accusations on both sides

Who: Viktor Zherebniuk (independent) vs. Ivan Melnyk
(Batkivshcyna)

Zherebniuk is the presidential appointed head of
Kyiv’s Desna District State Administration. Melnyk is a local businessman.

What happened:

Aside from the usual delay in vote counting, Zherebniuk
accused his opponent of vote tampering. He said he saw bags of ballots with
tabulated results naming Melnyk the victor being opened and tampered with.
Zherebniuk acknowledged that his opponent was ahead by 1,500 votes but when
some damaged ballots were re-counted, the tide turned in his favor. In turn,
Batkivshchyna’s Oleksandr Turchynov said many ballots were destroyed that
had Menyk chosen.

Paralysis of vote count

Who: Bohdan Hubsky (independent) vs. Leonid Datsenko
(Batkivshchyna)

Hubsky is a lawmaker and former member of Batkivshchyna who
is seen as a pro-government candidate. Datsenko is aide to a Batkivshchyna
lawmaker.

What happened:

The district election commission hasn’t counted votes
since Oct. 30. Batkivshchyna lawmaker Andriy Shevchenko Tweeted that the head
of the commission has lost consiousnesss. Opposition candidates accuse Hubsky
of applying psychological pressure on election officials to delay the vote
count. Hubsky, in turn, blames the opposition for pressuring election
officials. Batkivshchyna says its parallel count puts Datsenko as the winner,
even though Hubsky is officially winning the vote so far.

TABLE:

Hot single-mandate
parliamentary contests

Source: Central Election Commission