As Ukrainians line up to choose a new president, the turnout appears to be high in all but the separatist enclaves in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, two regions that are home to 15 percent of Ukraine's popualtion.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) says large numbers of polling stations did not open in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts because violent Kremlin-backed separatists still control most of the government administrative buildings and vowed to prevent Ukrainians from voting.
Mykhailo Okhendovsky, who heads Ukraine’s Central Election Commission, said voting was taking place in only two out of 12 constituency election districts in Luhansk Oblast and seven out of 22 in Donetsk Oblast.
Almost all polling station in Ukraine’s major cities saw large lines of voters.
The CEC called on people to report incidents of voter bribery and vote buying, but have not recorded an official complaints as of mid-afternoon on May 25.
However, the OPORA election watchdog says 16 cases of voter bribery cases were registered in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Rivne, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts. The watchdog cites faulty campaigning and falsification of election documents as the major problems encountered by election commissions. Some 480 violations were registered in Ukraine as of 5 p.m. on May 25.
The OPORA website launches online map for tracking all the violations during the election day http://map.oporaua.org/; another online map that shows the violations in all Ukraine’s oblasts can be found here http://91.227.69.104/main.
With more than 65,000 policemen deployed to polling stations over the country, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry has reported 19 cases of law infringements all over Ukraine as of noon.
“Most of the violations – 13 – were registered in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,” according to Stanislav Rechynsky, Interior Ministry spokesman. “Organized groups of people tried to set fire to the building of the polling station in Donetsk Oblast and damage the ballots.”
Minor violations were registered in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia, Ternopil, Kherson, Odessa and Kharkiv oblasts.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]
