All five district electoral commissions in the Luhansk region have informed Ukraine's central election commission that they could not do their job properly due to pressure and massive abuses.
“The election commissions cannot work de-facto, therefore the outcome of the elections in the Luhansk region cannot be established as required by the law. We propose that the elections in the Luhansk region be declared invalid and that repeat elections called and held when conditions are put in place physically and legally for the district elections commissions’ work,” the district election commissions said in a statement, read out at a press conference in Severodonetsk in the Luhansk region.
The statement was addressed to the Central Election Commission, to the National Security Service, Prosecutor General’s Office, police, and to international and Ukrainian organizations which monitored the elections. It says that the region’s district election commissions could not do their job “honestly, transparently, or within the timeframe set due to pressure coming from individual participants in the elections.” In some instances, election commissions’ work was obstructed, the statement says.
“The elections commissions were constantly targeted in attacks from individual candidates, some of whom consider single-mandate electoral districts ‘their own, pet domains,’ and try to influence the voting process and the vote count. In addition to this, the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic keeps disseminating statements and threats, warning district election commission members that they would be persecuted and possibly abducted, or killed. Commission members cannot do their jobs as their own and their families’ lives are at risk,” the statement says.
The statement also says that the Ukrainian Central Election Commission has warned the district election commissions in the Luhansk region that they have not submitted reports.
“Again, this is due to external interference, pressure, threats and attempted bribery. We would like the Central Election Commission and law enforcement services to take note of the fact that the voting process was blighted by abuses. Voters were bribed, which was documented in their complaints. But nothing was done to stop the abuses,” the statement says.
