After scuffles with police, fears of election fraud and a ballot recount, the district election commission in a Kyiv district finally concluded at 4 a.m. Oct. 31 that Svoboda activist Andriy Illienko prevailed by just 191 votes over acting Kyiv Mayor Halyna Hereha, leading to another seat in parliament for Svoboda Party.
While some commission
members representing Hereha were accused of attempting to falsify the
vote in her favor, Hereha said that she is ready to “accept any
election results” in the district and stressed she is against any
pressure on the election commission.
The 25-year-old Illienko
is a long-time Svoboda activist, a lawmaker in the Kyiv Oblast
Council and son of the late distinguished Ukrainian director Yuriy Illienko.
Hereha and her husband
Oleksandr own a chain of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) supermarkets called Epicenter. She
is also secretary of the Kyiv City Council and acting mayor.
Oleksandr Hereha, who
unlike his wife was successfully elected to parliament in a
single-mandate constituency in Khmelnytsky Oblast, has an estimated
fortune of around $400 million.
His wife was running for
parliament as an independent, but appeared to be closely cooperating
with the pro-government Party of Regions in the city council in Kyiv.
It was a long night for
many Svoboda activists, the police and numerous reporters that only
grew in quantity as the vote count stalled.
Fearing their victory in
district 215 can be stolen, Svoboda activists flooded the
administrative building in Kyiv’s Troyeshchyna district where the
district election commission held their meeting.
The entrance to the room
was blocked by the police who only let in journalists, election
observers and election commission members, as well as some
candidates.
With the portrait of
President Viktor Yanukovych hanging up on the wall in that typical
Soviet-era tradition, election commission members have been
recounting the last several thousand votes in a small room with
nearly a 100 people inside.
“We won and Hereha is
stealing this victory from us,” Illienko, who was constantly
present, told reporters during the vote recount.
As it turned out, he was
not completely wrong. On Oct. 30, when the commission received an election protocol from one local commission where Illienko defeated Hereha
with a 111-vote difference, they mixed up their results and put
Hereha on top.
Illienko immediately
spotted that votes cast in his favor were assigned to Hereha. Waving
the original protocol with figures in his favor, Illienko demanded a
recount of the vote and correct results, since the commission members
had a protocol with different figures.
“We beat her
despite all her dough. And to defend the vote we have now called for
total mobilization of our supporters to the building,” said
Illienko, shouting in his usual vigorous manner.
Before more people,
including Svoboda leader Oleh Tiahnybok, arrived at the venue, the
party activists tried to storm the entrance to the archive, where the
original voting ballots were stored. Their suspicion, which turned
out to be false, was that some ballots might be burnt or stolen.
After the video of
them trying to break into the archive spread on social networks, more
TV camera crews and locals gathered around the building, trying to
get inside. That resulted in a brawl with the riot police, which was
blocking the door.
In the meantime
while police were selectively letting lawmakers and journalists
in, Svoboda activists guarded several election commission members who
represented Hereha. They claimed these officials were trying to leave
the building premises with original protocols in order to hide the
fraud. These people refused to talk to journalists.
As the anxiety
escalated, fueled by the arrival of more police and Svoboda activists in the area,
late on Oct. 30, mini-buses with Hereha’s Epicenter supermarket logos
brought unknown people of various ages there, reinforcing the
suspicion that Svoboda’s opponent might try to apply physical force
to ensure her victory. But the buses left shortly afterwards.
In the end, the vote
recount confirmed Svoboda’s allegation of votes being counted
wrongly and the Central Election Commission immediately corrected the
official election figures for that district on its website.
Kyiv Post staff
writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected]
