Fears that landmark voting for a president in Ukraine’s eastern regions will be severely disrupted abound, as the nation with great unease observes its electoral day of silence.
According to Ukrainian election law all the agitation
and political advertisement should be stopped at midnight the day before presidential
elections and all the agitation material should be taken down by utility workers
over night.
However it’s not the electoral rule breakers that
worry Ukrainians the most prior to the election date, but rather armed
pro-Russian groups. Experts fear that the representatives of so-called Donbas People’s
Republic are keen to ensure that Ukrainians in the country’s East won’t be able
to vote.
According to Opora, national election watchdog, while the
preparation for the election goes well in 95 percent of country’s polling
stations, the vote is in danger at 50 percent of election districts in Luhansk
and Donetsk oblasts. “The reasons are terrorist attack and personal threats to
local election commission members, intimidations, kidnapping of local election
commission members and destruction of documents,” Opora report reads. “As a
result election commissions cannot fulfill their duties and their members
rotate all the time.”
The majority of local election commissions are working
undercover and often relocate, Opora observers say.
According to the election observers the risks of vote breakdown
are high at 14 out 22 polling districts at Donetsk oblast, seven election
districts are having problems with the preparation of vote but “the attempts to
stabilize the situation are being made,” the report reads.
Election commission’s offices were seized in
Artemivsk, Horlivka, Konstantynivka, Makiivka, Shahtarsk, Starobeshevo,
Telmanovo, Amrosievka, Mariupol and Donetsk. All the election documents were
stolen in most of these towns.
Nonetheless Ukrainian government ensures everything
possible is being done to ensure safety on Election Day. Ukrainian Deputy
Interior Minister Mykola Velychkovych told on May 23 that over 80, 000 police
officers, National Guard, state Service of Emergency Situation officers, senior
year cadets and public activists will guard 32, 000 polling stations all over
Ukraine on May 25.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk ensured
people in the east “who cannot go to the polls because of the war waged against
Ukraine: terror committed by bandits in your land will end soon,” he said
in his video address to the nation on May 24 and emphasized – votes won’t be
stolen this time. “This is the expression of the will of Ukrainians in the
west, the east, the north and the south, this will be a fair and unhindered
choice,” he said.
