There were no violations

On the eve of the Voting Day in Sevastopol , local security officials performed with loud statements. Military counterintelligence and the Security Service of Ukraine were worried about the facts of double citizenship - Russian and Ukrainian - among many local residents. According to the Radio Liberty correspondent in the Crimea Valery Balayan , violations of the law when voting in the elections of the President of Ukraine are concerned and the Crimean police.

On the eve of the election day, the Crimean police conducted a check of applications from those who wanted to vote on January 17 at home. According to Radio Liberty, the head of the police head of the Crimea Gennady Moskal , as a whole in autonomy, the period of the election campaign was quite calm, but in the very last days some political forces that do not gain the control figure, according to Gennady Moskal, resorted to petty and shameful violations. “One person comes and brings 90 statements from those who want to vote at home,” said Gennady Moskal. “There are observers who immediately turn to the internal affairs bodies through proxies. When checking it, it turns out: either there are no such houses, or people haven’t written such people, or we find a whole company who have been sprinkled with alcohol.”

Elections. Ivano-Frankivsk-like messages come to their other regions of Ukraine. Transcarpathian gypsy barons are trying to sell the votes of ordinary gypsies. This was announced by the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine of the Transcarpathian region Pavel Kononenko . Yesterday it became known that individual gypsy barons are negotiating with representatives of the headquarters of candidates for the position of president of Ukraine in order to sell votes more expensive.

And in the Zhytomyr region, representatives of individual political forces intend to damage seals on individual ballot boxes. If the seal on the urn is torn, the elections on this site are automatically declared invalid. Information was received that some people are offered 500 hryvnias for such a "service".

In the Talnovsky district of the Cherkasy region, police officers were identified by persons who bought the votes of local voters for a half -kilo of elite corn seeds and a bottle of vodka. In one of the villages of the Chernobaevsky district of the same region, the police inspector of the police documented the illegal actions of a member of the election commission, who offered the peasants money and vodka to cast their votes for a certain candidate.

The Melitopol Interdistrict Prosecutor's Office of the Zaporizhzhya Region registered a statement of the proxy of one of the candidates for the post of president of Ukraine regarding the bribery of voters.

There are many such messages, and they continue to arrive.

The head of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine Volodymyr Shapil said that there would be no breakdown of the elections in Ukraine. No emergency situations that would cause the election progress-he said during a press conference in Kyiv, and emphasized that as of 10 a.m., more than 50% of election commissions received information in the CEC. “The elections will be held in Ukraine,” said the Shapoval.

Indeed, one can note a very high turnout of voters, for example, in the Donbass. From Donetsk - Radio correspondent Freedom Yaroslav Kolgushev .

The elections of the President of Ukraine in the Donetsk region began on time, with the exception of only some areas, where, for a number of organizational reasons for the voting procedure, it was started later. In particular, on the site in the village of Artyomovskoye, the chairman of the precinct commission, confusing the electoral procedures, put the note “left” on the contrary of the names of the five candidates for president. As a result, 596 ballots were spoiled, the plot was forced to close until the moment when new ballots were brought from the district election commission. Otherwise, the electoral process goes relatively calmly.

According to the data at 11 a.m., 15% of voters voted in Donetsk in Donetsk, and in general, 17% in the region.

Elections. Lvivosoboye excitement among local authorities causes the activities of Georgian citizens, which, among several hundred people, arrived on the eve of Georgia in Donetsk. In particular, at a press conference on Sunday, the mayor of Donetsk, Alexander Lukyanchenko, said that he did not have accurate figures, how many Georgian citizens arrived in Donetsk supposedly to observe the elections. Their number varies from 500 to 800. According to the mayor of Donetsk, none of these citizens have the status of an observer, but at the same time they have certificates of journalists of various Ukrainian newspapers, in particular, the Government Utorovy Courier, the Vespers Vesti newspaper and even the Lugansk newspaper Molodogvardez.

On the eve of the mayor of Donetsk, he met with the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Defense and Security of Georgia Givi Targamadze , who assured the mayor of Donetsk, that several hundred citizens of Georgia who arrived in the city had private objectives of the visit, and invited Alexander Lukyanchenko to consider them tourists before the Central Election Commission registered them as official observers. But so far, none of the arrivals of Georgia has received this status. Only two people in Donetsk have the official status of observers from Georgia.

The election continues. So far, no serious incidents have occurred.

And Georgian media talk about the facts of beating citizens of Georgia in Donetsk. About this - Radio Liberty correspondent in Tbilisi George Kobaladze :

The journalist of the independent television company Imady David Kakulia confirmed in an interview with Radio Liberty that on the eve of the election of the President of Ukraine in Donetsk, unknown people beat Georgian observers and journalists. According to him, after the incident, Georgian journalists are guarded by representatives of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies.

As for several thousand Georgian observers, the Kiev Administrative Court for the second time confirmed their right to observe the elections, but the Central Election Commission of Ukraine did not make a decision, referring to the absence of a quorum. Thus, Georgian observers will no longer be able to take part in the first round of the presidential election.

The employee of the Georgian Entriccom, Natalya Chkheidze, said in an interview with RS that the CEC of Georgia sent only 15 observers to Ukraine, the rest are represented by non -governmental organizations and parliament:

- We sent only 15 observers to Ukraine, and the decision was made on the basis of the official request of Ukrainian colleagues, and we are very surprised that now they are refused the right to observe the progress of voting. Naturally, if they do not receive accreditation, they will not be able to give an official assessment

Independent political scientist Georgy Khukhashvili said in an interview with a RS correspondent that the excessively active participation of Georgia in the domestic political processes going in Ukraine will harm Georgian-Ukrainian relations with any election outcome:

- In this particular case, I think that the political situation has played and plays a decisive role on both sides. In such a tense situation, of course, there will be incidents, it is very unpleasant, because no matter how these elections end, such incidents in any case do not play in favor of our relations with this country. Whoever wins these elections, whoever was elected in Ukraine, even if Yushchenko, I do not think that the Ukrainian side, any future president liked that such an army was being sent and the situation is pumped out with such methods. This will negatively affect what is happening now, on the relationship of Georgia and Ukraine, in any case, whoever becomes the president.

Elections. Simferopol, how does the Galicia vote - is the so -called Western regions of Ukraine? Galina Tereshchuk conveys from Lviv.

All 2142 polling stations of the Lviv region opened on time, and there is no crowd of crowds. Almost 16% of voters voted for 12 hours in the Lviv region, and 3% less in the neighboring Ternopol. However, on Sunday, people traditionally in cities and villages of Western Ukraine first go to church, and after worship - to polling stations. Therefore, revival is expected later.

In all Christian temples, they prayed for honest elections and a worthy new president. More than 70 thousand voters, and this is about 4% of the total in the region, wished to vote at home. The most misunderstandings on the voting day are observed in the voter lists, because the court decision on this day is forbidden to amend the lists, although the law on presidential elections is given such a right.

In Lviv, residents of entire apartment buildings could not find themselves on the lists. Only 5% of voters checked their data in advance in the lists, and many could not do this for a simple reason: phones did not work on the sites. What kind of percentage of voters was not included in the lists is still unknown, but experts predicted such a situation long before the election, urging people to clarify their data on the lists.

In several villages, people said that they would definitely go to the polls. But many did not know to whom they would give their vote, since they no longer trust any of the politicians and representatives of the authorities. Between themselves, people said that they were offered 300 hryvnias for a voice for a particular candidate. The peasants joked: they say, you can take money, but it is not necessary to vote.

Older people are more active in the elections. For example, one of the oldest residents of Western Ukraine, 105-year-old Valentina Scale from the Kremenetsky district of the Ternopil region, came to the polling station. In this area, five polling stations began to work late, since the members of the election commission entered the ballots with obviously untruthful data that one of the candidates had left the elections. So almost 2000 ballots were spoiled. Law enforcement agencies are investigating this fact.

The elections in both areas are monitored by international observers, including from Russia. According to their estimates, voting is calm.

In the Chernihiv region is Andrei Trukhan , who takes part in the elected process as an observer from the World Congress of Ukrainians:

- I am in the village of Makishin, Gorodnyansky district of the Chernihiv region, this is almost the north of Ukraine, the border region with Belarus and Russia. This is my native village. There are about 700 voters in our village. A significant part, perhaps, even most of them are people of a pension and deeply retirement age, so 147 people asked to come to them with urns.

Voting is quite active. I am a little shocked that very elderly men and women come and choose, vote without any help and instructions. Sometimes drunk people even come across. One person was so drunk that he almost broke a beautiful, transparent, modern urn for voting. The chairman of the election commission believes that this vote is no different from the previous ones, and that by the evening the results will be quite predictable to many experts.

According to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine, and the last 10 years in the current elections of the President of Ukraine, as of 11.00, the lowest appearance of voters for polling stations has been observed - 15.1%. In 2004, the turnout was - 19.9%for this, UNIAN reports.

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  Vitaly Kamyshev

  Radio Office of Radio Liberty. Cooperates with the radio station since 1997. He worked in the journal The New Times, the newspaper Arguments and Facts, was a regular author of the newspaper Russian Thought (Paris) in 1995-2000. Kamyshevv@rferl.org