MARIUPOL, Ukraine - Activists and some local members of the post-EuroMaidan Revolution parties want to postpone local elections in Mariupol, alleging that surplus ballots are being printed to provide ample opportunities for election fraud on Oct. 25.
The activists charge that the ballots will be printed in Pryazovsky printing house, reputedly owned by billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, who is believed to support the Opposition Bloc party.
Political opponents of the current mayor, Yuriy Khotlubey, also an ally of Akhmetov, believe that any surplus ballots printed will be used to support the Opposition Bloc, which is formed by former allies of President Viktor Yanukovych, ousted last year.
Mariupol, an eastern Ukrainian port city of 500,000 people, is located just miles from territory controlled by Russian troops and their separatist proxies. A former stronghold of Yanukovych, it counts many local deputies that were members of his party.
Galina Odnorog, a local city council member with ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s party, said in an interview with Hromadske Radio that voters will not trust the election if the Pryazovsky printing house supplies surplus ballots.
“We want fair elections. This is an example of manipulation by the Opposition Bloc and their allies,” she said.
Mariupol City Council members said that only seven members the local election commission voted on Oct. 17 to print the ballots at Pryazovsky publishing house, short of the 12 votes needed. But the Opposition Bloc said that the Central Election Commission in Kyiv supported the decision of local election authorities in Mariupol to print the ballots there.
On Oct. 18, activists and some city council members blocked the entrance of the printing house and picketed the CEC in Kyiv.
Members of the Opposition Bloc blame Right Sector nationalists.
“Thugs are trying to disrupt the planned elections on Oct. 25,” said Anatoliy Demchenko, a local representative of Opposition Bloc. “The so-called activists are nothing but paid provocateurs of our political opponents.”
Konstantin Khivrenko, spokesman of the Central Election Commission, said that the commission decided to have the ballots printed in Pryazovsky. He said that the required quota of 12 members voting was achieved.
“The majority of representatives of the city council in Mariupol were in favor of having the election ballots printed out at Pryazovsky,” Khivrenko told the Kyiv Post by phone.
Hivrenko said that rescheduling local elections in Mariupol is not up to the CEC. “If there is any dispute, and a majority of Mariupol’s deputies wants to reschedule the elections, it’s something between them and the Verkhovna Rada,” he said.
The Opposition Bloc and smaller parties aligned with Yanukovych allies is expected to win a majority during the local elections in Mariupol, polls show, undercutting any need to cheat.
But Sergey Nesterov, a Mariupol city council member with the Bloc of President Petro Poroshenko Bloc, said that the former Yanukovych allies in the Opposition Bloc are afraid of losing power.
“It can only hurt them if it’s found to be true that the ballots are falsified,” he told the Kyiv Post by phone. “It will cause outrage resulting in that activists and we, their political opponents, will demand clarifications.”
