Central Election Commission chief Volodymyr Shapoval gave his first post-election conference today amid major concerns about the transparency of the vote tabulation in Ukraine’s Oct. 28 parliamentary electlon.
Addressing
the reason why the CEC does not post electronic results from all 33,762 polling
stations – only results from the 225 election districts – and whether it is
going to post officially stamped protocols when they arrive, Shapoval said that
it is impossible to do.
“Do you
want us to run protocols from each certain poll?” Shapoval asked surprisingly.
“Sorry, show me a least one example in the world [where this is done]. Can you
imagine what is it? Do not demand from Central Election Commission something it
cannot give you. ”
Shapoval
furthermore suggested that the Kyiv Post forget the word, “non-transparent,”
because it is not in the vocabulary used by the CEC.
However,
the CEC has posted polling station results in past elections so that the public
can confirm and verify the results. Several representatives of opposition
political parties on election night called attention to the CEC’s decision not
to post polling station results as creating opportunities for vote-count fraud
and manipulation.
Moreover, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe’s election observation mission has in preliminary
statements already criticized the CEC for lack of transparency. Maximum
transparency meets democratic standards for elections.
And,
judging by Ukrainians’ lack of faith in their election, transparency and full
tabulation of results would seem to be a reassuring step to take.
A poll commissioned by Democratic Initiatives and financed by the Dutch
Embassy and Renaissance foundation in early October found that only 9 percent
think the election will be completely free and fair, while 47 percent said it
will be not at all or not very free and fair.
The CEC
announced that by 1.20 p.m. it had processed 52 percent of electronic
voting results in the proportional race for 225 seats in the nation’s
legislature. According to the preliminary results, the ruling Party of Regions
got 34.86 percent, Batkivshchyna 22.07 percent, Communist Party 14.86 percent, UDAR
12.88 percent, Svoboda 8.44 percent.
Central Election Commission results differ from preliminary exit polls findings announced yesterday after
the polls closed at 8 p.m. The Democratic Initiatives exit poll funded by a
consortium of Western donors gave the Party of Regions 28 percent, Batkivshchyna
25 percent, UDAR 15 percent, Svoboda 12 percent and the Communist Party 12
percent.
“With all
my respect to those people who organize and conduct exit polls, it is a
relative thing,” said Shapoval of the difference between exit polls and CEC
results. “The more or less real result will be shown by [electronic] protocols.”
Nationwide turnout
amounted to nearly 58 percent, according to the CEC.
Shapoval
said there were objective reasons why CEC did not announce voter turnout figures
for the first few hours after the polls closed. He cited the country’s size and
the scale of the election campaign, and that certain polling stations did not
submit their results to the district election commissions.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be
reached at [email protected].
