You're reading: Mariupol mess

MARIUPOL, Ukraine -- While most of the nation got results from the Oct. 25 election, Mariupol got a criminal investigation.

Ukrainians want to know who is to blame for the cancellation of the elections in the strategic Azov Sea port city of 500,000 people, whose voters were deprived of the right to choose their mayor and city council. The cancelled election has triggered a spate of conspiracy theories, claims and counter-claims and criticism. Parliament has not yet set a date for a new election.

What’s clear is that Mariupol voters were the victims of a power struggle between the traditional powers in the region, represented by the Opposition Bloc party and billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, and the post-EuroMaidan Revolution forces, including Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Zhebrivsky.

Anyone found guilty of obstructing the electoral process – in this case, leaving 215 city polling stations without ballots – could face up to seven years in prison if convicted, according to a statement released on Oct. 27 by the Donetsk Oblast Interior Ministry.

Experts are divided on whether the culprits were the Akhmetov-owned printing house or members of the local election commission, who refused to let the ballots – some faulty and containing errors – be distributed to polling stations.

“The events in Mariupol show there was no political will to hold the elections,” Olga Aivazovska, the head of Opora elections watchdog, told the Kyiv Post.

The city has been at the center of a tug-of-war between forces loyal to the former government and ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, and pro-Maidan forces supporting new faces in the government.
With Akhmetov’s Metinvest company employing some 40,000 people in the city, the Opposition Bloc, comprised of Yanukovych’s former allies, still has a strong grip on the population. One of Metinvest’s top managers, Vadym Boychenko, is a favorite of the mayoral campaign.

All the same, local pro-Maidan forces were expecting to receive a big share in the city council and had proposed several candidates for city mayor, with the head of the local milk factory, Yury Ternavsky, having the best chance.

The competitive campaign was tainted by several scandals, with numerous changes of election commission members, an unexpected decision to print ballots at Akhmetov’s printing house and Zhebrivsky’s controversial announcement that the elections shouldn’t be held in the city at all.

On the eve of the vote, several members of the local election commission refused to accept the printed ballots, saying they had found 22 of them lying on the floor in the printing house. That was a violation of the procedure since the ballots must be stored securely and only be accessible to the members of the election commission. Also, many of the ballots had serious mistakes.

“The name of one candidate, (current mayor and candidate Yury) Khotlubey, was indicated both in the fourth and fifth rows, next to two different parties,” Kateryna Chernyuk, a member of the commission, told the Kyiv Post.

She added that at least two packets of ballots lacked the necessary stamps of the printing house and the door of the room where the ballots were held lacked a seal to protect the room from the public and limit access to election officials.

But the commission’s head, Iryna Yurina, said her colleagues’ refusal to use the ballots was nothing short of “sabotage.” Aivazovska of Opora agreed with Yurina.

“These violations weren’t (serious) enough to deprive a city of some 500,000 people of their voting rights,” she said.

Metinvest’s Boychenko claimed his rivals sought to disrupt the elections once they realized they were going to lose. He showed the Kyiv Post recent polls showing he would receive more than 32 percent support, and the Opposition Bloc about 31 percent, with other parties getting less than 5 percent. The polls were conducted by order of Boychenko’s campaign office.

He believes that pro-Maidan activists deliberately brought the defective ballots to the printing house to derail the elections.

“Or they hid them there before the arrival of election officials,” he said. “They probably have an influential patron if they can so deliberately violate the law.”

A view of a polling station at school number 9 on Oct. 25 in Mariupol.

A view of a polling station at school number 9 on Oct. 25 in Mariupol.

Ternavsky, for his part, blamed the Opposition Bloc for trying to falsify the election results.
Mariupol election officials face up to seven years in jail for blocking the election process, Mykhailo Okhendovsky, the head of Central Election Commission, said.

Zhebrivsky instead accused the Central Election Commission and Okhendovsky of failing to organize the elections.

But Adrian Karatnycky of the Atlantic Council said Zhebrivsky was the one to blame for depriving the Mariupol residents of their voting rights.

“Given his longstanding hostility to the right of people in the Donbas to vote, he should be removed from office and should be replaced by someone who strongly supports the democratic rights of the people of eastern Ukraine,” Karatnytsky said. The halted elections on Oct. 25 would only serve to push disappointed residents to support the Russian-friendly Opposition Bloc, he said.

Zhebrivsky, for his part, has denied influencing the elections in any way and said he hopes to see them rescheduled soon.

Valentyna Romanova, an expert from the New Ukraine political think tank, said the failed elections in Mariupol would become an issue in ongoing peace talks in Minsk about elections to be held in Russian-controlled parts of Donbas next year.

Poroshenko has called on parliament to make changes to the law allowing elections to be held by the end of the year. His party proposed Nov. 15, but election observers disagree with this date.
Aivazovska said it would be “legally impossible” to reschedule the elections for Nov. 15.

Serhiy Tkachenko, chairman of Committee of Voters of Ukraine election watchdog, recommended that the election process in Mariupol be started from scratch, with a full 60-day campaign period pending a political consensus.

Until a new date is chosen, Mariupol residents will live under the governance of Yuriy Khotlubey as acting mayor.

Khotlubey is now serving his fifth consecutive term and is a member of the Nash Kray party. He was last elected under the Party of Regions ticket in November 2010.

Kyiv Post staff writers Oksana Grytsenko and Allison Quinn can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected], respectively. Staff writer Johannes Wamberg Andersen also contributed to this report.