UKRAINIAN REGIONAL
REPORT
Election
Newsletter-2002
April
13th 2002
Issue #10
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This project was
supported
by the Democracy Fund of the U.S. Embassy,
Kyiv
The views of the authors do not
necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S.
Government
The project "Ukrainian Regional Report" was supported by the International Renaissance Foundation
URR Editor:
Laryssa Mudrak
Newsletter Editor:
Iryna
Solonenko
Translation and language editing:
Halyna Balanovych
and
Paul
Miazga
Contributors:
Volodymyr Poshva
Viktor Borysov
Liubov Vytkovych
Center for Political Analysis of Dnipropetrovsk
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Kharkiv Region
Of the 68 deputies elected to the Kharkiv regional council, 60 have decided to form a United Kharkivshcnyna faction. Volodymyr Zorchenko, the deputy head to the regional governor and the coordinator of the regional law enforcement department before the election, was elected to chair the faction. Olexiy Kolesnyk, the former head of the Valkovskiy district state administration, was elected as head of the regional council. These are the decisions of the first session of the newly elected regional council as of the 6 April 2002. Mr. Zorchenko stressed that United Kharkivshchyna, with 31 regional members of the For A United Ukraine political bloc with the same number of independent deputies would strengthen cooperation with the regional state administration, institutions of local governance, and members of parliament. In the last regional council, there was one faction - Communists for the Social Justice and Law and two deputies’ groups - The Deputies Union for Human Rights (communists and socialists) and The Democratic People’s Regional Party - (New Policy). According to a statement made by Evhen Kushnaryov, the regional governor, representatives of For A United Ukraine celebrated the election victory at local councils on different levels.
Volodymyr Shumilkin was elected mayor in Kharkiv, as reported by the city election committee. According to its statistics, 35.5 per cent of voters supported Mr. Shumilkin. His main competitor, Alla Aleksandrovska, the leader of the regional communists, received 24 per cent support. Shumilkin, the former deputy head of the regional state administration, was supported both by the Our Ukraine and For A United Ukraine political blocs. A further six mayors from the main regional centers were elected, some of them reelected, but none of them representing the Communist Party of Ukraine.
Sumy Region
Of the 75 new regional deputies, 53 are directly or indirectly dependent on the regional state administration for their support, as reported by local observers. The party winning here was the Liberal Party of Ukraine (LPU) and the regional party chairman Volodymyr Shcherban, who simultaneously holds the post of head of the regional state administration. LPU members won 21 mandates, agrarians - 8, the Party of the Regions and the social-democrats united - 2 and 3 mandates, respectively. There was also one representative from the socialists, communists and farmers who also won such mandates. Shcherban himself, his predecessor Mark Berfman, the heads of the police and security services and nearly all the governors’ deputies were elected to the regional council. It must be noted that 36 deputies reside in Sumy, although many were put on the election list in remote, regional locations.
Olexander Andronov, supported by Our Ukraine, the socialists and the communists, now holds the mayor’s post in Sumy. There were seven candidates in total, but only two main contenders- Olexander Andronov - city mayor since 1994, and Anatoliy Bondar - his ex-deputy and the acting deputy to the regional governor. Andronov was elected by 58 per cent of the vote, while Bondar received only 26 per cent.
Dnipropetrovsk Region
Dnipropetrovsk regional council saw 75 per cent of its seats changed after the elections. As Pavlo Shandyba, the head of the regional election committee stated, at present the majority of the council consists of the “regional centrist leadership.” According to the election results, among the deputies elected are the regional governor, Mykola Shvets and his four deputies Halyna Bulavka, Volodymyr Meleshchyk, Petro Kravchyk, and Volodymyr Zalunin. In Pokroskiy distict, Volodymyr Derkach, an ex-governor’s deputy and now Ukrainian Ambassador to Lithuania, got the mandate of the regional deputy council. Among others elected are also Serhiy Cheh, director of Dniproblenergo; Olexiy Lisohorskiy, the head of the regional police road inspection department; Olexander Momot, the director of Prydniprovksa Railway; and, Nadiya Dyeyeva, the head of the regional state administration financial department. For A United Ukraine’s members and supporters received 70 mandates - a majority in the regional council, though initially there were 26 of such officially nominated bloc candidates and 53 promoted by the communists. In the end, the communists won only six. There were 36 deputies of the last convocation up for re-election, but only seven succeeded.
In the region, 50 per cent of all the regional mayors have been replaced as a result of the elections. Eight mayors were reelected and 13 will sit for the first time. In Dnipropetrovsk itself, Ivan Kulinichenko was reelected as mayor. According to a statement by Lidiya Topyuk, the head of the city election committee, Kulinichenko was supported by For A United Ukraine and was re-elected with 53.6 per cent of the vote. Another candidate nominated by the Communist Party of Ukraine, Victor Borshchevsky, was supported by 25 per cent of local citizens. As journalists have reported, he was consistently critical of the regional leadership. Ivan Shulyk, nominated for the mayor by Our Ukraine, gained only 6.4 per cent of the vote. Mr.Shulyk, who chairs the regional UPM (Ukrainian People’s Movement) and holds the post of chief artist at a local theatre, suggested in his election program that he would unblock the city’s central transport system by constructing a cable railway in Dnipropetrovsk . Two final contenders, Victor Berizka - the head of the Justice regional organization, and the economist Olena Gostyeva enjoyed approximately the same miniscule support.
Cherkassy Region
The Court has confirmed the decision by the city’s election committee regarding the invalidity of the city’s mayoral elections. There was also another decision to cancel the registration of the candidate Anatoliy Voloshyn. Therefore the elections for mayor will take place on the 16 of June 2002. The Court’s decision was based on complaints by 287 Cherkassy citizens, who claimed serious violations of the election procedure. Particularly, the territorial election commission set out gross breaches of election law by Anatoliy Voloshyn, the executive director of Yuriya Diary Enterprise and a city mayoral candidate. Voloshyn said he was lawfully elected mayor, has occupied the mayor’s office since 2 April 2002 and has refused to leave the premises since. He has stated that the committee’s decision was not unexpected for him, but insists that he received 2,000 more votes than the acting mayor, Volodymyr Oliynyk.
Many local officials made it to the regional council. They include the governor V. Lukyanets, the regional council head H. Kapralov, and nine heads of district administrations - all-level officials, big enterprises directors and chairmen of joint-stock companies.
Ternopil Region
Local policemen have won 99 of the local council mandates. Six of them, including Vitaliy Maksymov, the head of the regional police department, won a regional deputy’s mandates. The total is 32 in the districts, 14 in the towns, and 45 in the villages. Another two were elected as village chiefs. According to the Ternopil police public relations service, this was the most active election activity for its staff since Ukraine became independent. In all previous convocations in the regional councils, there was not one policeman.
Chernivtsi Region
The territorial election committee has declared invalid the regional council elections in Khotyn, Zastavna, and Sokyrnyany districts on the grounds of mass electoral fraud. There are also two lawsuits that have been brought by candidates on the similar claims. Prior to this, Mykola Podilchuk, the head of Chernivtsi regional election committee, reported on the election protocol exchange and the additional registration of 1,000 votes in Khotyn district in favor of four parties with representatives campaigning for the regional state administration. According to Podilchuk, the data about the fraud was traced to many polling stations in Khotyn, Zastavna, Sokyrnyany and Vyzhnytsya districts and thus were able to sway the final election results. Aside from this, according to the provisional data obtained by the commission, in some polling stations the ballot papers were not counted at all and in 90 per cent of some cases, the official monitors representing political blocs and parties were rejected permission to witness the counting procedure. The governor, Teofil Bauer, prior to the official results, announced that more than half of the regional deputies (45 of 104) would represent For A United Ukraine, as led by him and his first deputy, Mykola Shevchuk. Mr.Bauer said there were also five representatives from Our Ukraine and four social democrats (united) making up the council. At the same time, Borys Bahlei - the deputy head of the regional Our Ukraine headquarters - has claimed that their block lost at least 40 per cent of all mandates due to the mass election results falsifications.
Lviv Region
Lyubomyr Bunyak, a 58-year-old candidate of technical science and the deputy director of UkrTransOil is the new mayor of Lviv. Bunyak, received 183,103 votes while his rival, former mayor Vasyl Kuybida received just 108,560. A. Sadoviy, the director of the Lviv Development Institute and Yuriy Karvatskiy, the president of Karpat Construction Co., followed behind the leading candidates. Bunyak has won a convincing victory by beating Kuybida, who was receiving support from Viktor Yushchenko`s Our Ukraine bloc. The new mayor began his duties on the 11 April and reiterated his declaration that he would resign if, in two years, the problem of the round the clock water shortage in the city has not been solved.
Crimean Autonomous Republic_(CAR)
The election results from the autonomous republic, as reported by the Crimean media, noted the election of 26 representatives of The Crimean Hrach bloc and 39 representatives of The Kunitsyn Team, the group representing the former Crimean prime minister and the Ukrainian presidential advisor Serhiy Kunitsyn. Aside from this, there will now be 8 Crimean Tatars in the parliament of the autonomous republic. They include: a communist; Lentun Bezaziyev, the first vice-premier of Crimea’s government; Edip Gafarov, the chairman of the Republican Committee on National Minorities and Deported Citizens Affairs; and Aziz Abdulayev, the first deputy of the Crimean Industry Minister. Of the 100 deputies of the Crimean parliament, there are 5 representatives of The Russian Bloc.
The conclusive victory of Leonid Hrach, the speaker of the Crimean Autonomous Republic (CAR) is yet to be officially confirmed. According to a statement by Ivan Polyakov, the head of the Republican election committee, the election commission of constituency #25 (Simferopol) - where 70 per cent of all voters supported Mr.Hrach - did not follow the election result protocols. Polyakov was charged with “sabotage” by Olexander Hutsalenko, the head of the district election committee who “is holding documents back and therefore hinders the final election results.” The Supreme Court of Ukraine has set a hearing on 19 April based on Hrach’s appeal, as his candidate’s registration was cancelled. As stated earlier, on 25 March the district Simferopol Court cancelled the decision of #25 election committee to register Hrach as a candidate to the parliament of CAR. The Supreme Court of Ukraine did not hold a hearing on Hrach’s case by the election date, as the necessary materials were not at its disposal (a court of first instance is to blame). However, the #25 election committee did not strike Hrach’s name off the ballot papers and he won the election anyway.
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