You're reading: Warning: Fraudulent Oct. 28 Parliamentary Election Ahead

Eight months ahead of the Oct. 28 parliamentary elections, allegations of corrupt tactics to thwart the will of Ukraine’s voters are already surfacing.

And if the results on Election Day can’t be sufficiently fixed, one opposition lawmaker says the pro-presidential faction already has plans in place to buy off parliamentarians to get them to join the ruling Party of Regions after their election. Such a tactic would reprise the alliance-shifting tactics that took place after the 2007 vote, ultimately depleting the opposition Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko from 156 to its current 103 members in the 450-seat body.

If the fraud and bribery scenarios come to pass, discontent is likely to rise at home while the nation’s relations with the West are likely to deteriorate further.

Roman Zabzaliuk, a lawmaker in the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko faction, reignited the issue this month when he claimed to have documented how President Viktor Yanukovych’s supporters paid him $450,000 to switch from the BYuT faction to the pro-presidential majority.

While representatives of the Party of Regions deny allegations of bribery or plans to fix the election, Zabzaliuk went further in charging that Party of Regions’ adherents plan to stack election commissions vital to ensuring an honest vote.

The idea, Zabzaliuk said, is to offer payment to people to join election commissions as supporters of Tymoshenko when they would be actually tasked to undermine her.

The accusations come as no surprise to at least one analyst.

“These kind of tactics will be used in order to convince deputies to switch sides [after being elected] in order to secure a pro-presidential majority in the next parliament,” said Denys Kovryzhenko, an analyst at the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives think tank.

Zabzaliuk fingered Igor Rybakov as one of president’s men behind the schemes. He claims to have audio recordings to back him up.

Rybakov is a leader of the Reforms for the Future parliamentary group, which claims to be independent but consistently votes with pro-presidential lawmakers.

Rybakov refuted the allegations. He called the recording fake. He said his faction merely collected money for Zabzaliuk to help him pay for medical treatment abroad.

Nationwide it is possible to distort up to a maximum of 3 percent unnoticed, but it will be impossible to miscalculate a million votes without anyone noticing it.

– Oleksandr Chernenko, head of election monitor the Committee of Voters of Ukraine

On the recordings of Zabzaliuk’s conversations with a man who sounds like Rybakov, the pro-presidential lawmaker is allegedly heard offering support for single-mandate candidates:

“I am willing to give him money, to help during the election. That is, if I see that it is a sure thing. Because when it’s the second place, you risk money, and I risk power… Because then my head will get cut off. You know what I am saying. And when he gets first place, then we sort out everything. […] I am ready to make money [to help with] billboards, gifts, buckwheat…”

If current polls hold, the Party of Regions would have a hard time winning the elections honestly – hence, the measures that Zabzaliuk is talking about.

A December poll by the Razumkov Center gave the Party of Regions 13.9 percent support. Allies, including the Communist Party of Ukraine and Strong Ukraine, could add another 10 percent. The poll suggests the opposition has 30 percent support, including imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party at 15.8 percent.

Many fear the current mixed election system makes fraud easier.

Half of the parliament is elected through closed party lists while the other half are chosen in single-mandate districts, reintroduced last November. “By the system itself, pro-presidential parties will secure a majority in the next parliament,” Kovryzhenko predicted.

Analysts point to the 2002 parliamentary election, the last time a mixed election system was used, as an example.

Back then opposition parties were more popular than those in power, but they did not secure a majority. Numerous independent candidates won elections in single-mandate districts, only to swiftly join the pro-presidential factions in the parliament.

Zabzaliuk also played this excerpt of a recording he says belongs to Rybakov: “We need all the candidates. Any… The main thing is that they have to be with us. It does not matter whether they are from BYuT or not from BYuT. The main thing is that I have these slaves,” referring to the makeup of the election commissions.

However, election analysts believe that no major attempts to fix the result of the vote will go unnoticed domestically and internationally.

“Nationwide it is possible to distort up to a maximum of 3 percent unnoticed, but it will be impossible to miscalculate a million votes without anyone noticing it,” said Oleksandr Chernenko, head of election monitor the Committee of Voters of Ukraine.

Moreover, EU and U.S. officials have warned that the Oct. 28 elections will not be considered fair if opposition leaders such as Tymoshenko are not released from jail and allowed to take part as candidates.

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Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].