Supreme Court to weigh local-court decision annulling Kyiv mayor election
erous violations of law, Kyiv's Vyshgorod district court on July 22 annulled the results of this spring's election, only to have the Supreme Court freeze the lower-court ruling four days later.
The Vyshgorod court ruled that Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, who won the May 30 vote in a landslide, abused his authority in ways that unfairly hurt the chances of defeated rivals Hryhory Surkis and Mykola Hrabar.
Supreme Court Judge Vitaly Boiko, however, halted the ruling and demanded all documents in the case so that the high-court justices could decide for themselves.
The Vyshgorod court found that Omelchenko misused public funds during the election campaign, illegally used the city administration's TV channel to promote his candidacy, and banned outdoor ads for his rivals while improperly using the city metro's radio system to broadcast his own ads.
These violations and others 'significantly affected' the results of the election, according to a 23-page court ruling by Judge Oleh Kryvenda. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Surkis and Hrabar.
The two court decisions will not change how the city is governed or how it performs its major services, such as collecting trash, public transportation and supplying water. As head of the Kyiv city administration appointed by President Leonid Kuchma, Omelchenko remains in charge of the city's workforce and its Hr 1.7 billion annual budget.
At this time, until the final ruling by the Supreme Court, nobody knows if and when a new election will be held. Omelchenko's forces vowed he would win another contest. In the May election, the non-affiliated Omelchenko soundly defeated the Social Democratic Party's Surkis, his major rival. Omelchenko won 76 percent of the vote. Hrabar was an also-ran.
In reaction to the court's ruling, President Leonid Kuchma lined up squarely behind Omelchenko. In what critics viewed as interference with the judicial process, Kuchma attacked the court's ruling as an 'offense on the choice of Kyiv residents.'
The mayor's supporters, while shocked by the bombshell lower-court decision, defended Omelchenko's campaign tactics as legitimate and legal. They had filed an immediate appeal to the Supreme Court.
'This is the kind of decision that decent people did not expect,' said Volodymyr Yalovy, Omelchenko's first deputy and a top campaign official for his boss during the election.
The Vyshgorod court also ruled that the City Election Commission, the body in charge of organizing the elections, was illegitimate because it had been created before a new law defining the status of Kyiv city was passed earlier this year.
But the lower court did not back a request of Surkis and Hrabar to ban Omelchenko from participating in the new election.
The city of Kyiv has been without a legally recognized mayor before. From 1996 to earlier this year, an elected and an appointed city head fought for power and cancelled out each others' decisions.
Last May's election was supposed to give Kyiv a fully legitimate local power. Both branches of the Rukh Party and the Reforms and Order Party held press conferences to back Omelchenko and criticize the court ruling. Omelchenko's supporters charged that Kryvenda, who was appointed judge by the Verkhovna Rada, was bribed by Surkis supporters. Kryvenda could not be reached for comment.
Lavrenty Malazoniya, an aide for Surkis, said that all allegations of corruption are false and are part of an effort to intimidate other courts.
'It's clearly a form of pressure on the courts,' Malazoniya said.
Surkis announced that he would not run in a second election if it were to be held, and called on Omelchenko not to run again either.
'I officially declare that I will not run for the office if new mayoral elections take place. Oleksandr Omelchenko, who allowed abuse of authority and public funds … shouldn't run for mayor's office either,' he told Kievskiye Vedomosti newspaper, which he controls.
Surkis also added that someone else from his party, the Social Democratic Party, will run for the office.
While Surkis and Omelchenko threw mud at each other, the Kyiv city electoral commission gathered to reconfirm Omelchenko as mayor, notwithstanding the judge's opinion that it did not have legal standing to do so.
The national Central Election Commission, which supervises local commissions, backed up its Kyiv city branch by saying that all such commissions are appointed for the period of four years, and therefore the Kyiv city commission remains legitimate until 2002.
Some analysts, however, predicted that the Supreme Court will assert its independence from Kuchma and affirm the Vyshgorod court's decision, more out of spite than anything else.
