The quickest way to track preliminary, unofficial results of the Jan. 17 vote is to check the results of five exit polls, which will be available on the Internet via texting service Twitter (www.twitter.com) by searching for #elect_ua.
These and other unofficial results will also be cited during post-election marathons aired by most of Ukraine’s major television networks. The Central Election Commission on Jan. 12 announced it would likely not post official results until the day after voting.
Poor preparation
Oleksandr Chernenko, head of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a Western-funded election watchdog, said this vote has been among “the worst organized and funded” for the past 10 years. The government allocated Hr 1 billion for the election, but payments have been slow in trickling down to election workers.
Lyudmila Doroshenko, head of a precinct election commission in Semihory, a small town 120 kilometers south of Kyiv in Bohuslav district, knows it. She has yet to receive money for election-related work.
“None of us have gotten paid yet,” Doroshenko, a 46-year-old mother of three, said. She said there are 27 members of the precinct, and that they each expect to earn at least Hr 500 for their election work, or just below a monthly pension wage. Financing is tight due to last year’s recession.
International observers, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have taken note of the financial problems. “The problem is the lack of money for salaries and transport services,” OSCE election observer Heinz Rudolf von Rohr told Interfax-Ukraine news agency on Jan. 12.
Confusion reigns
Unclear procedures for many aspects of the election process are also becoming major headaches – and could lead to mass falsification. Key clauses in the election law to reduce the risks of vote-rigging were debated by parliament to the very end, but lawmakers failed to adopt improvements.
Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko objected to liberal home-voting requirements. She said the procedure could be abused and become the source of millions of falsified votes for her top rival, Victor Yanukovych.
Mykola Azarov, deputy chairman of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, on Jan. 13 rejected the claim, saying that no more than 1.5 percent of eligible voters have filed petitions to vote at home. Chernenko, from the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, agreed the 10 percent figure is probably “exaggerated.”
Tymoshenko’s campaign said almost 10 percent of voters – some 300,000 people — from Donetsk Oblast, the hotbed of support for Yanukovych – have already asked local election officials for permission to cast ballots at home, indicating potential for fraud.
Procedures are supposed to be in place to allow invalids and seriously ill people to vote at home. But Ukraine’s law does not require medical certificates and allows voters petition for vote-at-home status the day before the election.
Other problems
In its interim report of Jan. 8, the OSCE noted that frequent changes in the composition of district and precinct election commissions are hurting their work. The mission also observed biased media coverage in favor of leading candidates, a lack of clear procedures for adding voters to voter lists and shenanigans (over placement of the official stamp and who is in charge) in Ukraine’s High Administration Court, which is charged with adjudicating election-related complaints and appeals.
One polling station’s problems
Doroshenko’s polling station in Semihory has about 200 registered voters. As of Jan. 13, members of her commission had yet to agree on where to put their ballot box, let alone discuss procedures for allowing elderly and sick voters to vote at home. “We’ll probably put the ballot box in the culture house,” she said, referring to a dilapidated brick structure where locals gather to celebrate the end of each harvest.
High turnout expected
About 37 million Ukrainians are registered in the national voter database, but the number of those who voted in the 2007 snap parliament election was 22.3 million people. Nearly 28 million Ukrainians voted in the repeat run-off election on Dec. 26, 2004, that elected Victor Yushchenko as president.
Other rules
According to the presidential election law, Ukrainians over 18 years of age that are included in the voter registry will be allowed to cast ballots. Those living or working away from their official residence, or place of registration, must notify the voter registry office nearest them in advance and provide, in person, a copy of their passport, as well as a valid rental agreement or lease agreement to receive a slip for voting elsewhere.
Kyiv, for example, is estimated to have 800,000 people renting apartments and residing without official registration on top of its official 2,780,000 population. Hundreds of thousands who rent Kyiv apartments without a lease may not be allowed to vote on polling day.
They can still try to get an absentee slip. But election experts warned that the procedure for registering to vote away from one’s legal residence could take several days, leaving little time for those that have not yet done so.
Election facts
– 37 million Ukrainians are eligible to vote.
– 33,677 polling stations have been set up nationwide.
– 1,485 special polling stations have been created for this presidential election, including 1,200 in hospitals, 213 in prisons, 70 on maritime vessels and two more at Ukraine’s Artic Station.
– 133 polling stations opened in foreign countries for Ukrainians living abroad.
Kyiv Post staff writer Peter Byrne can be reached at [email protected].
