The Opora election watchdog has largely confirmed exit poll results and declared the first round of the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections broadly competitive.
During an April 1 press conference, Opora unveiled the results of its parallel vote count. Based on the reports of 1,296 specially prepared and officially registered election monitors, the parallel count can predict the vote’s result with 95-percent certainty, according to the organization.
“The election of the President of Ukraine took place in a competitive manner” and the competition “largely occurred within the framework of the law and in accordance with basic international standards,” Opora director Olga Aivazovska said.
“Despite the polarization of the media and the politicization of the local and state authorities, not a single (candidate) had a monopoly on communication with voters,” she added.
Opora found that comedian-turned-politician Volodymyr Zelenskiy received 30.1 percent of the vote (with a 0.7 percent margin of error), incumbent President Petro Poroshenko received 15.7 percent of the vote (with a 0.7 percent margin of error), and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko received 13.3 percent of the vote (with a 0.4 percent margin of error). Thus, Zelenskiy and Poroshenko move onto the second round of the election to be held on April 21.
Pro-Russian former Energy Minister Yuriy Boyko took fourth place with 11.5 percent, followed by former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko with 6.8 percent, former Security Service of Ukraine chief Ihor Smeshko with 5.9 percent, populist lawmaker Oleh Lyashko with 5.5 percent, pro-Russian former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Vilkul with 4.1 percent, and lawmaker Yuriy Tymoshenko with 0.6 percent of the vote. All these candidates had a margin of error of between 0.1 and 0.7 percent.
All the other candidates received 5.1 percent of the vote in total. Opora calculated a voter turnout of 63.2 percent, with a 0.8 percent margin of error.
Opora also analyzed the quality of polling station commissions’ adherence to the law. According to Aivazovska, the watchdog saw a decrease in electoral violations in 2019 compared to the 2014 presidential vote.
The most common violation during the 2019 vote was polling station officials giving out ballots without requiring voters to present an acceptable form of identification. This occurred at 14.5 percent of polling stations, but did not appear to be a systemic problem or a planned attempt to influence the vote, according to Opora.
Another major problem was voters showing, photographing, or otherwise disclosing their secret ballots. Opora election monitors encountered voters revealing their ballots at 10.4 percent of polling stations and photographing them at 4.8 percent.
However, at 99.4 percent of polling stations, Opora did not encounter a single incident of an individual inserting multiple ballots into the ballot box.
And 97.7 percent of polling stations followed the legal procedures for counting ballots, Opora observers concluded.
Nonetheless, the election watchdog criticized several aspects of the presidential campaign, including the usage of “administrative resources,” violations of the rules governing political agitation, and politicians using social payouts and budgetary programs to influence the vote.
Despite these violations, the election and its results “reflect the real division of Ukrainian citizens’ electoral positions,” Opora wrote in public statement on the vote.
