You're reading: Harvesting heads and other election shenanigans highlight political week

A few months ago, the Constitutional Court declared the propiska system to be unconstitutional. For many Ukrainians, this was joyful news because it allows them to work and live in cities of their choice. However, as the parliamentary elections near, it is clear that the propiska court decision has come back to haunt us.

The elimination of propiska, or residence permits, means that citizens may apply to their current election district, where the local election commission gives them a detachment ticket allowing them to vote in the districts of their choice.

According to Our Ukraine bloc, in Rivne Oblast, some voter lists have undergone big changes. Vasyl Chervony, head of the Our Ukraine regional headquarters, claims that in the Zdolbuniv district the number of registered voters has increased by 9,000. In the small village of Mizoch, the number of voters registered outnumbers permanent residents by almost 1,500. Chervony believes these changes are the result of manipulations by local authorities.

In Kyiv, longtime Rada stalwart Viktor Suslov claims there is a move afoot by Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omel‑chenko to ensure Suslov’s defeat.

Suslov says the methodology is very simple. Thousands of construction workers who are involved with the various companies doing business with the city are being strongly encouraged to move their registration to Suslov’s district where they will cast their ballots for Suslov’s opponent, Stanislav Stashevsky, the first deputy head of the city administration and a very close political associate of Omelchenko.

Marina Stavnichuk, a Central Election Commission member, said that should Suslov’s fears become reality, the results would be in compliance with provisions of the election law.

Some observers say there are strong rumors that certain military units will be moved en masse to locations where they may cast their votes as needed to support the fight against those opposing pro‑presidential forces. During Soviet times, military units were often sent into the fields to help harvest the crops. In modern Ukraine, they may be used to help harvest the political heads of opposition candidates.

 

Millstones around candidates’ necks

Among its many duties, the election law tasks the CEC with verifying income declarations submitted by parliamentary candidates. After tabulating information provided by the State Tax Administration, the CEC said 647 candidates had submitted inaccurate or incomplete income information, thus opening them up to various penalties including removal from the ballot.

Yabluko party leader Mykhailo Brodsky, a frequent critic of both the STA and the Presidential Administration, is alleged to have misrepresented his income. Oleksandr Slobodyan, owner of the Obolon brewery and number seven on the Yushchenko bloc list, is said to have under‑reported his income by about $40,000.

However, topping the list of those allegedly in non‑compliance were 63 Green Party candidates, including businessmen Serhy Krivosheya, Serhy Rus and Ihor Kiryushin.

The CEC has no power to remove non‑compliant candidates from the race after March 1. However, the law allows both private citizens and legal entities to initiate court proceedings. Thus, any candidate not in compliance with income‑reporting requirements may find himself challenged in the notoriously sluggish judicial system and placed in limbo for an indefinite period.

It is unclear whether the law was just sloppily – or perhaps very craftily – drawn but the reality is that winning candidates not in compliance with income reporting rules could find themselves caught in a judicial web, their election mandates suspended indefinitely while a the case grinds ever so slowly through court.

Since the courts tend to be open to suggestions from the Presidential Administration, some candidates could find themselves under an electoral‑judicial sword of Damocles for weeks or even months.

 

Communal services debts pile ever higher

On March 13, both the Rada and the government demonstrated just how little they care about unpaid bills for communal services. Currently the total monthly bill for these services averages Hr 120 to Hr 140 for a family living in a two‑room apartment. This sum is unaffordable for about 20 percent of the population whose income is below the monthly living minimum.

As of Feb. 10, the accumulated national debt for communal services totals Hr 7.3 billion. One would have thought that this would be a priority topic on Government Day, but it was nothing on the kind.

The Rada session hall was almost empty and the government’s report was presented by deputy state secretary of the Economy Ministry Ihor Shumilo.

During three hours of discussion, deputies lamented the arbitrariness of the state monopolies governing these entities, poor delivery of services and the absolute irresponsibility of the providers. Numerous inquiries touched upon poorly substantiated, obscure mechanisms of calculating the fees and payment rates. Shumilo, the designated whipping boy of the day, defended the policies of the Cabinet of Ministers. He claimed that 15.6 percent of families regularly receive subsidies in the amount of Hr 45 a month, that the electricity rates cover only 70 percent of cost, and that there would be no power rate hike this year.

However, the Cabinet of Ministers representative wanted no part of discussing a deputy’s proposal that state liabilities of Hr 140 billion for public savings lost in the old State Saving Bank be used to offset the communal services debts.

His reluctance was no surprise. At the beginning of March, President Leonid Kuchma vetoed the bill

The best thing the government could suggest was a proposal to revive the former Communal Businesses Ministry.

Eventually, virtually every kopeck of the Hr 7.3 billion in debts will likely be written off the books. In the meantime, the communal services debt remains like a smelly old dead fish that is brought out periodically for all to see and smell – but not to touch.

 

Budget violations

Every fall government officials, deputies, IMF gurus, World Bank managers and financial experts go through the seemingly serious exercise of getting the state budget passed. All those who take this game seriously are well advised to sit through the presentation of the Accounting Chamber’s annual report to the Rada.

The analysis of the 2000 budget and the first three quarters of the 2001 budget are the most spectacular.

Take the next few paragraphs, lifted directly from the chamber report:

“The Cabinet of Ministers, the Finance Ministry, the State Treasury, the central bodies of state executive power and managers of budget matters were systematically violating in the course of executing the state budget for the year 2000 the requirements of the Constitution and enactments of current budget legislation; this resulted in numerous cases of misappropriation of budget means and ineffective, disproportional and other illegal spending.

“According to the analysis of execution of the state budget during nine months of the year 2001,the Accounting Chamber board has concluded that during 2001 the budget was executed in an unsatisfactory manner …”

The report goes on to say that during nine months of 2001, production increased because production facilities were operated above capacity and that power and raw materials were provided free to business, which resulted in increased indebtedness.

In 2001, the report continued, the amount of written‑off and restructured tax liabilities and tax privileges reached a record level of more than Hr 60 billion. In the period of January through August 2001, 44 percent of the enterprises were unprofitable.

There are places in the world where such a damning audit report would lead to heads rolling and possible criminal investigations. Here, it is just another day in the fantasy world of the Ukrainian state budget.