With just six weeks before Ukrainians vote in a parliamentary election that could change the course of their nation’s future, a think tank revealed that less than half of citizens have a clear grasp of new election rules.
Only 48
percent of Ukrainians said they know that the Oct. 28 contest involves election
of half of the 450-seat parliament through contests in single-mandate
districts. Findings of the poll were made public on Sept. 11.
“This is
disturbing, because the [single-mandate part of the vote] will be the decisive
part of the fall election,” said Iryna Bekeshkina, director of the Kyiv-based
Democratic Initiatives Foundation.
The poll,
conducted in mid-August by Bekeshkina’s non-governmental organization and the
Razumkov Center, showed that other 29 and 23 percent of respondents know little
or nothing about single-mandate contests.
The October
vote will take place under the mixed system, adopted last November, reverting
to a system the nation last used in the 2002 parliamentary election. The other
half of parliament is elected through closed party lists.
Pre-election
polls currently show that Ukraine’s political opposition has a chance to
win a majority, breaking the monopoly grip on power by President Viktor
Yanukovych, who stands accused of rolling back on democracy and imprisoning
political rivals.
Yanukovych
denies such accusations, but opposition parties claim the presidential camp is
plotting to steal the election. Concerned about the jailing of opposition
leader Yulia Tymoshenko and democracy in Ukraine, the West is sending large
observer missions to Ukraine. It is much easier to monitor national party list
contests than keeping an eye on 225 district contests throughout the nation
with some 3,000 candidates.
“The fact
that so many people do not know about the single mandate part of the vote means
that the choice of some of them will be random” Bekeshkina said.
Kyiv
Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].
