You're reading: From blankets to buckwheat, candidates use bribes to win voters

For the villagers in Pokashchiv in Volyn Oblast, it seemed that Christmas came early. 

On Oct. 2, their local Santa, lawmaker Ihor Yeremeyev, stood in front of the crowd reading from the wish list from the local residents, and then doling out certificates to buy the goodies.

The local kindergarten got Hr 20,000 to get new windows. The local post office received Hr 3,000 for a new door. Two families with newborns got blankets. A local school got a printer, a fax machine and a photocopier.

“Is Hr 10,000 enough? Ok. So you’ll be able to do everything now,” Yeremeyev asked a school representative who said they need to drill a well.

Lawmaker Ihor Yeremeyev speaks to his voters in Pokashchiv in Volyn Oblast on Oct.2, 2014. Packs with ‘presents’ for voters are behind him.

Officially, this unusual event, which was caught on video by OPORA election watchdog, was supposed to be a meeting with potential electorate of a candidate from the single mandate constituency number 23. But the way he was conducting the meeting is actually banned by the Ukrainian election law.

“Such actions are indirect bribing of voters and they could be punished according to Criminal Code of Ukraine,” said Mykhailo Shelep, a local observer for OPORA election watchdog who posted the video on the Internet.

Yeremeyev was elected a lawmaker in the same district in 2012, but only found time to help the voters weeks before the new poll. Yeremeyev’s press service didn’t respond to the Kyiv Post request for comments.

Election observers admit that despite all the changes in the country, attempts to bribe voters in this election are probably as common as under President Viktor Yanukovych. Witnesses have been posting photographs of food packages offered by the candidates along with beautiful leaflets with their Photoshoped faces and pretty campaign slogans.

These food packages frequently contain staples like buckwheat, condensed milk, tea and sunflower oil. The candidates caught giving out those bribes so far are Ivan Vinnyk from Kherson Oblast, who is supported by Petro Poroshenko’s Bloc; Volodymyr Skorobogach, an independent candidate running in Kharkiv, Eduard Matviychuk, an independent candidate in Odesa, current lawmaker from Party of Regions Vitaly Khomutynnik, who is now running in Kharkiv as an independent, and Oles Dovgy, an independent candidate in Kirovograd Oblast, who was part of the team of highly controversial Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetskiy.

None of them have responded to accusations of voter-bribing. They did, however, become fodder of many bitter jokes in social networks.“Hello, I came to buy your grandma,” said one collage of five such food packages that was shared around Facebook.

Photograph of food package presented on behalf of candidate Vitaly Khomutynnik.

So far, police have opened 11 criminal cases regarding voter bribing, according to Anton Herashchenko, adviser to interior minister. He said sitting lawmakers Dmytro Dobkin (brother of former governor of Kharkiv Oblast Mykhailo Dobkin), Sergiy Kivalov, Oleksandr Volkov, and Khomutynnik are being investigated, but did not elaborate on others.

“They are bribing with money, food products, free glasses, free ride in marshrutkas (minibuses), bed linens,” Herashchenko said at an Oct. 10 briefing.

If found guilty, those who buy voters can go to jail for up to four years, according to Olga Aivazovska, head of OPORA. But she said she could not recall any cases in Ukraine that would have been investigated and made it to court. She said the real number of voter bribes is much higher than 11, of course.

Herashchenko said that his ministry has prepared a new bill that would enable to hold actual voters responsible for accepting bribes for their vote.

But Aivazovska is skeptical about the proposal.

“Even without these changes it would be possible to act on reports about voter bribing, but we don’t have enough of this (reaction) so far,” Aivazovska said.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be reached at [email protected]