Crumpled debut

Yulia Tymoshenko found “thimbles” in the Ukrainian Central Election Commission

Last weekend, hundreds of supporters of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYuT), under the supervision of so far a few police officers, picketed the building of the Central Election Commission in Kyiv. The fact is that the opposition BYuT encountered an unexpected hitch on its way to the Verkhovna Rada, early elections to which will be held on September 30 . On Friday, the Central Election Commission actually refused to register the entire BYuT election list - 450 candidates.

Members of the Central Election Commission from the ruling parliamentary-government coalition referred to discrepancies in the data on the place of residence of applicants indicated in the general list and in the autobiographies of candidates. It was in vain that the deputy head of the Central Election Commission, Zhanna Usenko-Chorna, said that “the BYuT documents do not violate any norms of the law.” After arguments that lasted almost until midnight, seven members of the Central Election Commission, with the required eight, voted for the registration of candidates from BYuT, seven more abstained, and one was absent. Immediately after the voting, CEC Secretary Tatyana Lukash announced that the documents submitted by BYuT did not comply with the law: “The electoral list does not indicate the place of residence of the candidates for deputies, only the administrative unit where the candidates live is indicated. But in the biographies of candidates, the residential address is indicated in full.”

BYuT submitted documents to the CEC last Tuesday. According to the election law, the Central Election Commission must register the electoral list within three days or refuse registration. By law, a party or bloc whose list was rejected has until August 25 to resubmit it for registration.

The current composition of the Ukrainian Central Election Commission was approved in early June. It has eight members from the parliamentary coalition and seven from the opposition, and the posts of the head of the commission and his two deputies went to the opposition. The parliamentary coalition includes the Party of Regions of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Communist and Socialist parties. The opposition to the Yanukovych government is considered to be the bloc “Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense” and BYuT, which is close to President Viktor Yushchenko. On Saturday, the Central Election Commission allowed all candidates from the Our Ukraine - People's Self-Defense bloc, the All-Ukrainian Association "Svoboda" and the "Lytvyn Bloc" to participate in the election race. Previously, the Central Election Commission registered the lists of the Party of Regions, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party.

The voting results outraged the BYuT leader to the core: “The Central Election Commission simply followed Yanukovych’s instructions. This is not even the Middle Ages, these are just political thimbles.” The authorities are also to blame for “not reacting in any way to the situation, which is a violation of the laws and the constitution.” As for the CEC members who did not support the BYuT list, their actions, according to Ms. Tymoshenko, “imply criminal liability.”

“We all witnessed the political massacre of BYuT. They want to exclude our political force from the election race for far-fetched, purely political reasons,” BYuT representative in the Central Election Commission Petr Krupko addressed the press. According to him, BYuT lawyers will immediately begin preparing a lawsuit to appeal the “inactivity” of the CEC: “There are no legal grounds for not making a decision on the BYuT list, but the court will have enough grounds to recognize the actions of the CEC as unlawful and oblige it to register our candidates.” .

In response, members of the Central Electoral Commission from the dominant coalition of the Party of Regions, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party in the Rada warned yesterday in a joint statement that it was impermissible to put pressure on them: “No one will ever be able to force us to make an illegal decision, even using such dirty and unacceptable means in a democratic state, like threats and intimidation." They are not too pleased with the expected arrival today of “reinforcements” from the western regions of the country that traditionally support BYuT to the CEC picketers: “All disputes surrounding the electoral process must be resolved exclusively on the legal plane.”

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN