Editor's Note: On Oct. 26 Ukrainians are voting to elect the new Verkhovna Rada, a 450-seat single-house legislative body. Originally, the elections were expected in 2017, but the EuroMaidan Revolution changed the flow of events in the 45-million country and led to early parliamentary campaign. These elections are based on a mixed-member proportional representation. According to the law, 225 deputies will be elected on party lists and 225 in single-member constituencies. However, given that the elections won't be held at 12 single-seat constituencies in Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as at 15 constituencies in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, at most 423 members of parliament out of 450 will be elected. Voting will end at 8:00 p.m.
7:39 p.m. – Deputy Speaker of the National Security Council Volodymir
Polyovyi said that police received 19 reports of mining of polling stations, all of them appearing to be false. Meanwhile Deputy Chairman of the
CEC Zhanna Usenko-Chorna says that early parliamentary elections in Ukraine
are fair and transparent. “There is a few violations, but many times less
than the previous election. It doesn’t not spoil this positive appearance of
elections in general,” – she said – Ukrayinska Pravda, National Security Council
6:44 p.m. – In Luhansk region terrorists resort to intimidation tactics to prevent voters in the
occupied territories to take part in the election, National Security Council reports. early on Oct. 26 militants distributed
leaflets with threats to deprive elderly voters of their pension for
voting. Ruusian-backed terrorists also threatened that anyone who came to
the polls, would be prosecuted “according to the military state laws”. Besides, terrorists warn that representatives of election commissions will be executed – National
Security Council
6:04 p.m. – “Azov” volunteer battalion commander Serhiy Melnychuk has reported that none of his soldiers was able to vote in Schastya
village near Luhansk. “Our constituency № 105 was inactive and (the president) did nothing to change it. Neither soldiers nor people who
came to Schastya from other regions could vote”, – says the commander.
Meanwhile Deputy Defense Minister Peter Mehed has informed that 75 percent of military conscripts voted as of 3. p.m. He also said that voting is conducted
in hospitals and penal battalions. According to the Defense Ministry, as of 3:00
p.m. in military hospitals 57 percent of voters took part in the elections –
Radio Liberty, BBC.
5:54 p.m. – More than 40 percent of voters showed up at election presincts around the country as of 4 p.m. Central Election Commission reported. So far, the highest voter turnover has been recorded in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast where more than 48 percent of voters took part in the election. In comparison, close to 25 percent of voters showed up at the polling stations in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, partially under control of Russia-supported militants. – Central Election Commission.
5:32 p.m. – Interior Ministry reported nearly 161 violations during the
voting in the elections to the Verkhovna Rada as of 2. a.m. “In particular, there were 14 cases of bribery of voters, 12 reports about presincts being mined, 10 cases of administrative abuse, seven incidents with dissemination of false information , and four cases of damage of bulletins,” – said the
statement. Besides, police investigates the loss of official stamp by the local election commission chair – Interior Ministry.
4:22 p.m. – Over 15 district commissions in Donbas have changed its
members last night. “There are serious concerns that this night, the last day
when members of district commissions could be changed, such changes took place
in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts,” said Leonid Yemets, a candidate at Kyiv’s
district 221 and a representative of the People’s Front in Central Election
Commission. According to Yemets, new members of district commissions are people
who worked for the former ruling Party of Regions and possibly rigged elections
in the past. Ivan Kyrylenko, head of the election headquarters of Batkivshchyna
party, said on press conference that members and heads of district commissions
were changed rapidly and unexpectedly in several regions, in particular in Donetsk
and Luhansk Oblasts. Meanwhile Zhanna Usenko-Chorna, deputy head of the
Central Election Commisssion, said that those changes have been made according
to the Ukrainian law.- Ukrainian News, Ukrainska Pravda.
4:14 p.m. – Voters turnout exceeds 30 percent in four Oblasts of Ukraine, which reported the data to the Central Election Commission. So far, Zaporizhzhia Oblast is showing the highest turnout, with the percentage of those who voted as of 4 p.m. exceeding 36 percent. – Central Election Commission
3:10 p.m. – Interior Ministry reports 14 facts of paying for votes and 10 cases of “usage of administrative resource,” which is involving public officials in any activity to support one of the candidates. Moreover, 12 bomb threats occured as of 2 p.m. – Interior Ministry’s press service
3:05 p.m. – U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt attedded a polling station in Kyiv’s Podil district where he talked to the press. “I visited polling stations in Kyiv, in Kyiv Oblast… I did not notice any significant violations or problems”, he said. – Radio Liberty, Ukrayinska Pravda
3 p.m. – Dmytro Firtash, a chemicals and energy mogul that is suspected of bribery by the U.S. prosecutors, came to vote to a polling station in Vienna, Austria, where he currently stays. – Radio Liberty
2:55 p.m. – A car was attacked near a polling station in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast’s Kryvy Rig. An attacker made numerous shots. – Ukrayinska Pravda
2:45 p.m. – President Petro Poroshenko took part in the elections by casting a ballot at the polling station in the Officers’ House on Hrushevskogo street in Kyiv. Earlier today, he visited Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast to check how the election goes in a city with 162,000 residents.
“The turnout is very high. There’re not any major accidents during these elections which respond to all the European standards,” Poroshenko said to the press in the Officers’ House. “An order in the country is not determined by the number of thieves, but by the goverment’s ability to fight them.” – 5 channel
2:30 p.m. – The National Guard soldiers are voting in Donetsk Oblast’s Slovyansk, almost 1,900 militants will choose which parties they want to enter the parliament. However, ballots with last names of the candidates running in the local single-member constituency have not been handed to them which is seen as a controversy by the Ukraine’s Voters Committee.
For instance, in the polling stations at a hospital on Kharkiv’s Pushkinska street as well as in Lukyanivka Prison in Kyiv the voters, who are not registered residents of these places, have been given both ballots – with the parties list and with the candidates’ last names. Election Commission said such voters should be given a chance to vote for both, parties and single-mandate candidates. However, Igor Miroshnychenko, a member of parliament with Svoboda party, says they should vote with one ballot only. – Alex Rychkoff’s Twitter account, Igor Miroshnychenko’s blog with Ukrayinska Pravda, Oleg Sukhov from Kharkiv.
2:15 p.m. – Opora, a group of civil activists, unveiled the interactive map that tracks the voters’ turnout in all the constituencies across the country according to the official data by the Central Election Commission. Now, the information is updated as of 12 p.m., new data will be published at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. Later, the map will also show the election results. – Opora
1:40 p.m. – Seven polling stations in Mykolayiv, southern Ukraine, received threats about the bombs and were forced to shut down temporarily. Cynological services have checked the buildings and have not found any explosives. After calls about the bombs turned out to be fake, the polling stations resumed their work.
A polling station in Kharkiv Oblast’s constituency 180, which is Nova Vodolaga, also received a fake phone threat about mines at the election day. The night before, an anonymous informed police about explosives in the school building which hosts three polling stations of 171 constituency in Kharkiv. It was a fake message too, police detained the hooligan.
In western Ukrainian city of Rivne a police officer on duty at one of the polling stations received a phone message about the “explosives nearby” and another one in which he was advised to look after a woman with a grey package. The information was also fake, the polling station is open again. – Interior Ministry’s press service, Nikvesti.com
1:30 p.m. – Poroshenko Bloc’s candidates Sergiy Leshchenko, Mustafa Nayem and Svitlana Zalishchuk were attacked as they were driving in a car near Znamyanka in Kirovograd Oblast. Seven unknown persons started throwing rocks at them near the Orlyne Gnizdo hotel. “The attack took place near the polling station where we witnessed bribing the voters on behalf of Oles Dovgy (a candidate close to former Kyiv mayor Leonid Chernovetsky),” activists said. Poroshenko Bloc’s members came to Znamyanka to hold an event promoting transparency durign the elections. They’ve been heavily criticizing Dovgy’s campaign recently. – Ukrayinska Pravda
1:25 p.m. – Voting ends in Australia, South Korea and Japan. – Foreign Ministry’s press service
1:20 p.m. – Almost 20 percent of the voters have already visited the polling stations and made their choice. Kirovograd Oblast has the highest turnout of 25.5 percent. However, these are not the most accurate figures since only 96 of 198 constituencies submitted the latest statistics. – Central Election Committee
1:05 p.m. – Activists noticed a group of people near the polling station in Mykolayiv Oblast’s Kryvoozersk, who came in 27 cars, which is why activists suspected them in bringing fake voters. They passed a complaint to the local police. – Viktor Levchenko’s Twitter account
Police prevented a group of unregistered voters from entering the polling stations in Cherkasy. Moreover, voters in Cherkasy were offered Hr 500 to 2,000 and a bus to Odesa Oblast to support Vitaliy Barvinenko, a candidate associated with the Party of Regions. However, there are four candidates with last name Barvinenko in 141 constituency with a center in Tatarbunary. – Cherkasy Police’s press service
12:55 p.m. – More than 17 percent of the polling stations have started their work too early or too late, while 2.8 percent of the voters have been registered to vote at home.
Only 17 of 32 constituencies in the Donbas are taking part in the elections due to the Russian military aggression in the region.
Police have arrested a group of people near the polling station in Kyiv’s Obolon district. They claim to be a so called Obolon Civic Defense. – Opora
12:50 p.m. – Only 42 percent of the voters in Donetsk Oblast can vote in the Oct. 26 parliamentary elections, according to Ukraine’s Voters Committee and Opora, election watchdogs. As of 11:30 a.m., 1,058 out of 1,145 polling stations, that were planned to work in the region’s 12 constituencies, are open. According to the Central Election Commission data, total number of voters in Donetsk Oblast is almost 3.7 million people. However, polling stations can provide a chance to vote only to some 1.4 million of local residents. – Facebook page of the Ukraine’s Voters Committee in Donetsk Oblast.
12:35 p.m. – President Petro Poroshenko came to Kramatorsk in Donbas Oblast to check the election process on the local polling station. He flew to the Donbas on a helicopter to see how many soldiers would be able to vote. As much as 10,000 military servicemen are expected to exercise their voting right on Oct. 26.- President’s press service
12:25 p.m. – Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klychko, who leads Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko in the elections, came to vote with his wife. He said he’s going to keep his current position with Kyiv City Council and Administration, no matter what the election results will be. – Ukrainian News
12:05 p.m. – Mykharkov.info, a website covering Kharkiv city news, reported that a number of pseudo-patients have been registered to vote at the hospital on Pushkinska street. However, hospital’s management denies this and says 107 out of 109 patients voted early in the morning.
Moreover, activists representing Oleksandr Kirsh, a member of People’s Front who runs for a seat in the Rada here, arrived in the hospital saying the patients should be given just one ballot – the one with the parties list, while they are not supposed to vote for the candidates in the single-member constituency as they are not registered as residents in this district. Local election commission issued a special note explaining that hospital patients should be given both ballots. – Oleg Sukhov, Kharkiv
11:50 a.m. – Residents of Kommuna and Novogrygorivka, two villages in Donetsk Oblast’s Artemivsk district, will not have an opportunity to vote, since the military zone is too close to them. Moreover, the ballots have been damaged. Meanwhile, Donetsk governor Oleksandr Kihtenko promised to apply the maximum security measures on all the polling staions. – 5 channel, Interfax Ukraine, Vecherniy Bahmut
11:40 a.m. – Polling
station in the cultural center’s building in the downtown area of Krasnoarmiysk
in Donetsk Oblast sees very few voters as of 11 a.m. Only some 40 people voted
by 9 a.m. in the city just in 30 kilometers from the separatist-controlled
territory.
Members of
the local election commission don’t think the turnout will exceed 30 percent,
while the figure for 2012 parliamentary election, won by then-President Viktor
Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, stood at almost 100 percent.
Krasnoarmiysk,
a home to some 80,000 people employed mostly on the coal mines, used to
be a loyal Party of Regions’ electorate, though now locals fill puzzled with
making a choice as Yanukovych fled the country after more than 100 people were
killed in an attempt to protect his regime from the EuroMaidan Revolution which
eventually overthrew him.
Mostly
elderly people come to the polling stations, where loud sounds of Ukrainian pop
music cheer them up.
Liudmyla
Zhuvak, 76, a retiree, used to vote for the Party of Regions and now says it’s difficult
for her to see the Opposition Bloc in the election ballot since in consists
mostly of the former Party of Regions’ members. “I was confused a
bit,” she said.
Another
local retiree Vasyl Zoriany, 80, said he voted for the Communist Party explaining
his choice with being a communist in the Soviet times. Zoriany doesn’t know
whom to vote for besides the communists, who are not likely to pass the 5
percent threshold to the Verkhovna Rada, according to the latest polls.
For
businessman Volodymyr Bigvava, 42, these elections are very important. He came
to the polling station for the second time in his life, his first time happened
during the May 25 early presidential elections when he supported Petro
Poroshenko who won the campaign. “Now there’s a need to do something with
this country,” he says, adding that he voted for the Samopomich, a
political party led by Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovy.
There are
10 refugees and 40 soldiers in the list of voters at the Krasnoarmiysk polling
station, a grim reminder of the ongoing war. But none of them came to vote so
far.
Krasnoarmiysk
was identified as a part of the buffer zone, according to the Minsk Agreements
between Ukraine and Russia that allowed establishing a tentative ceasefire in the
war-torn Donbas. “We are neither DNR (self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s
Republic), nor real Ukraine,” said Iryna Vasylyeva, secretary of the election
commission.
Some
people still feel scared to come to the polling stations. DNR did not manage to
occupy the city, however the May 11 separatists’ referendum led to clashes with
several people shod dead in Krasnoarmiysk. – Oksana Grytsenko, Krasnoarmiysk
11:00 a.m. – Police have not found any explosion devices in the hospital in Kharkiv Oblast’s Nova Vodolaga, where locals vote, after an anynymous called the hospital at 7:45 a.m. and told there was a bomb. – Internal Ministry’s press service
10:40 a.m. – The voters turnout on the polling station on Constitution Maidan in downtown Kharkiv seems to be quote low as of now with elderly people being a majority of the voters so far. – Oleg Sukhov, Kharkiv
10:30 a.m. – While Ukraine has moved on to the winter time, which is one hour behind the summer time that was effective until today, city of Donetsk has not followed the whole country and stayed in the summer time. As of 9:30 a.m., the situation in the city of 950,000 residents was “calm”. – Donetsk City Council’s press service
10:20 a.m. – Maryna Poroshenko came to the polling station on Hrushevskogo street alone, as her husband, President Petro Poroshenko, went to the Donbas and will come back to Kyiv to vote later today. – Olga Rudenko
10:15 a.m. – Yulia Tymoshenko, country’s former prime minister who leads the Batkivshchyna party in the ongoing elections, has arrived to vote to one of the stations in Dnipropetrovsk at 9:30 a.m. with her husband Oleksandr. While talking to the press, Tymoshenko said she supports peace in the Donbas. – Interfax Ukraine
9:55 a.m. – Polling stations in Donetsk Oblast’s Krasnoarmiysk are open, locals come to vote. – Anastasia Vlasova, Krasnoarmiysk
9:50 a.m. – Residents of Slovyansk, a city with some 120,000 residents in Donetsk Oblast that was liberated from the separatist troops on July 5, are arriving to the polling stations to make their choice. – Hromadske.tv
9:45 a.m. – Ukrainians of Australia were first to start voting at 00:00 a.m. Kyiv time. As of 8:00 a.m., when the voting started in Ukraine, 34 polling stations of 112 overall polling stations abroad have opened successfully. – Foreign Ministry’s press service
