In Ukraine, votes are being counted for a week

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine, a week after the elections to the Verkhovna Rada, still cannot sum up the results. At the moment, 99.95% of the protocols for party lists have been processed ( the results in two districts have not been summed up ) and 99.62% for majoritarian districts ( the counting in one district has not been completed ). In addition, original paper protocols were received only from 190 out of 225 districts, Interfax reports, and the Central Election Commission sent some of them for clarification for “technical” reasons. The votes will be recounted at 19 polling stations in the 216th district, where Batkivshchyna candidate Ksenia Lyapina won with an advantage of 1.5%. Her victory was challenged in the Kyiv District Court of Appeal by self-nominated candidate Alexander Suprunenko.

“We demand to establish the voting results and recognize the victory of opposition candidates in those constituencies where their victory is confirmed by the original protocols of the precinct election commission,” said the leader of the Batkivshchyna party, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, following consultations of the UDAR, Batkivshchyna and Svoboda parties with the chairman CEC. “We demand that President Yanukovych and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine immediately initiate criminal proceedings on the facts of falsification of the electoral process.” According to Yatsenyuk, if there are no protocols in the districts, re-elections should be held. In addition, the opposition declared its readiness to recognize the elected parliament as illegitimate and demand early presidential elections and re-election of the Rada.

One of the candidates from Batkivshchyna, Vyacheslav Kirilenko, in an interview with Ukrainian television, also did not rule out the surrender of mandates by opposition deputies. "Batkivshchyna" also intends to appeal to members of international observer missions and members of the European Union, USA and Canada for information about the fraud they recorded during the elections.

However, so far the international reaction is limited to statements by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. Komorowski, in a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, expressed concern about the lengthy vote count and reports of massive fraud, Interfax reports. “The latest events in Ukraine have a negative impact on the overall assessment of the elections and may slow down the process of Ukraine’s approach to the European Union, including the signing and ratification of the Association Agreement,” Jaromir Sokolovsky, Minister of the Office of the President of Poland, quoted Komorowski as saying.

“The counting of votes in the remaining constituencies of Ukraine seems increasingly unclear. This is dangerous by further delaying the process,” the Swedish Foreign Minister wrote on Twitter .

The leaders of Batkivshchyna, Svoboda and UDAR called on their supporters to gather for a rally near the Central Election Commission. However, according to Ukrainian media , only a few hundred people came to the morning rally. The next rally is scheduled to take place in the evening. It is expected that several thousand supporters of Batkivshchyna, UDAR and Svoboda will take part in it.

According to preliminary voting results, the Party of Regions is still in the lead - 30% on the party list and 115 mandates in single-mandate constituencies. In second place is “Batkivshchyna” with 25.5% of the votes. The Communists (13.8% of the votes), Vitali Klitschko's UDAR (13.96%) and the nationalist Svoboda party (10.44%) also enter the Rada.

PublicPost asked experts how justified the opposition's claims are.

Konstantin Matvienko, expert at the Gardarika Strategic Consulting Corporation.

— Were there those large-scale falsifications that the opposition is talking about?

We could watch what was happening at the polling stations live via web cameras. And yes, of course, falsifications took place. What else, besides falsifications, could be the reason for the long summing up of results? How else can you call it when “Berkut” (a special unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine - PublicPost) seizes election documentation from polling stations by force? Or when the results for the district are announced without protocols, or when the ballots are sent for recount, and then it turns out that there are many falsified and invalid ones?!

— How do you assess the opposition’s statements about their readiness to recognize parliament as illegitimate?

The opposition has declared its readiness to recognize the elected composition of the Supreme Council of Ukraine as illegitimate. This is their response to falsification. This is a very serious step, and if the opposition is ready to follow this path, then this means a whole series of very serious organizational actions. I’m not sure that they are capable of them, but the statement itself suggests that the opposition has clearly matured and now a mandate is not an end in itself.

— What will be the further actions of the opposition?

Convening a rally during working hours, on a working day, is not the most reasonable thing that the opposition could come up with. She was in a hurry here. Now it makes more sense for them to act in a different way, in two possible directions. Having collected more than half the votes under the proportional system, the opposition can turn to self-nominated deputies with a proposal to join the parliamentary coalition and create a parliamentary majority. Invite the communists to join this coalition. The second way is to create an opposition government, possibly headed by Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko, and launch a parallel executive branch. But not in terms of implementing government decisions - then it would be a coup d'etat - but in order to pass all government decisions through the filter of the opposition government and show society the intellectual imperfection of the government.

Evgeny Kiselev, TV presenter:

“It seems to me that the opposition will now make some noise and make some noise, and then take a step back.

Most people in Ukrainian society took the results calmly. Yes, there is a rally going on, and five thousand people are taking part in it, which by the standards of Kyiv politics is not that many. This is not the Maidan of 2004. Perhaps it will last a day, two, three, a week. But no more, because only 13 districts are disputed, mainly in Kyiv. 13 districts out of 225 is hardly a reason to declare the election results as a whole invalid.

I think that the situation will be resolved in the coming hours or days through a political compromise. I don’t think that the opposition is really inclined to abandon participation in the legal parliamentary struggle and go out into the streets. Now there are no prerequisites for this. So somewhere the authorities will make concessions, somewhere the opposition will make concessions. Because the opposition, in general, performed well and got what it should have gotten, because it simply doesn’t have the resources to win in majoritarian districts.”