Ukraine's Oct. 28 parliamentary elections have produced no clear winners, only losers.
While
the opposition parties appear to have done unexpectedly well in the
national vote, signaling a desire for change, local districts are set
to be dominated by government candidates. Turnout has been
historically low, and the elections themselves are one of the
dirtiest the country has seen in years.
Ever
since the broken promises of the 2004 Orange Revolution, which
overturned a rigged presidential victory for current President Viktor
Yanukovych only to replace it with years of conflict and chaos,
Ukrainian voters have rarely appeared in media publications without
the adjectives dispirited or disillusioned.
Last
night seemed to be a confirmation of that theme, with 57.99
percent of eligible voters showing up at polling stations, despite the stakes involved. Parliamentary elections in 2006 saw a turnout of almost 59
percent, while the second round of the 2010 presidential vote
convinced over 69 percent that casting a vote was worthwhile.
Disappointment
with the country’s political elites is certainly a reason behind
the modest turnout. In a poll commission by German news outlet Deutsche
Welle in September, more than half of Ukrainians said they do not
trust any of the different parties top candidates. Hence the strong
performance of extreme parties – the right-wing Svoboda and the
Communists – which exit polls show attracted almost a quarter of
the votes.
Svoboda
in particular has exceeded expectations, not just entering the
parliament for the first time in history – passing the necessary
threshold of five percent – but actually becoming a serious force
with 11-12 percent of votes, according to most polls. Seen as
ideologically driven rather than simply implementing the agenda of
various oligarch-run business groups, the political outsider
performed particularly well in western and central Ukraine, even
gaining second place in the closed list vote in the capital Kyiv with
almost a quarter of votes.
But
fears of widespread fraud also kept voters at home, almost three
quarters of whom did not expect elections to be free and fair,
according to the Deutsche Welle survey.
The
fears seem to have been justified. Online sources and opposition
party leaders have described cases of massive fraud. Among others,
deputy head of Batkivshchyna Oleksandr Turchynov claimed the
authorities were inflating voter turnout, to the like’s 70 percent in
some cases, in the pro-Party of Regions east. Meanwhile, the website
main election watchdog, Opora, suffered from a distributed denial of
service attack, which took it offline.
But
while the country’s loss is clearly apparent, the verdict for the
different parties appears more mixed.
At
present it appears clear the Party of Regions will form the ruling
coalition and could even muster enough seats to hold the majority
alone. But exit polls suggest the party lost the popular vote, with
close to 50 percent going to the three main opposition parties, a
sign that ordinary Ukrainian’s patience with the party is quickly
running out.
Thus,
building a majority coalition will only be possible due to an
overwhelming victory in the single mandate districts – Party of
Regions faction leader Oleksandr Yefremov predicted the party could
gather some 150 seats in the single mandate districts, allowing his
coalition to form a majority of around 230 seats just by themselves.
Experts have also predicted that many independents could join the
coalition, as could some nominally opposition figures.
Yet
independent observers have described as the single-mandate as being
the most vulnerable to electoral fraud. Prior to the elections,
numerous cases of bribing voters or using administrative resources to
influence the local population were documented. Moreover, the results
of the 33,000 polling stations will be aggregated to the level of the
225 districts, which Tymoshenko ally Hyrhoriy Nemyria described as
creating “a huge reservoir of uncertainty.”
“Overall,
the quality and standards of the elections of the last 90 days are
below previous standards,”
he added.
Even
when discounting the single mandate districts, however, the United
Opposition, and its main pillar Batkivshchyna can hardly call the
results a success. In 2007, Batkivshchyna alone took over 30 percent
of the vote, compared to the 25 percent it is expected to get for the
whole union of opposition parties. Still separate and significant at
the time, Our Ukraine took in a further 14 percent in 2007.
Guaranteed
some of that support has moved to world boxing champion Vitali
Klitschko’s UDAR, which is expected to win 14 percent of the
proportional vote and is seen as a potential coalition partner for
the United Opposition. But the fact remains that many of the
erstwhile supporters of Yulia Tymoshenko and other opposition leaders
voted for Svoboda – a sign that, like most Ukrainians, they are fed
up with the status quo.
Kyiv
Post editor Jakub Parusinski can be reached at
[email protected]
