On 1 November, district election commission No.143 finished the vote counting of the election to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine having adopted the final protocol.
According to final data, voter turnout in the district No.143 amounted to 46%, which is approximately 12% lower that in the country in general. Among 145K voters included into the lists at the polling stations, over 66K people voted. 2,810 of them voted at home, the rest — at the polling stations.
District No.143 chose the Party of Regions which gained 43.12% of votes, and the candidate for People's Deputy of the Party of Regions Yurii Kruk — 23.76%.
According to the protocol, the highest number of votes in the district gained Yurii Kruk. Only one candidate — Yurii Kruk — responded to the suggestion of the Head of the district commission Oleksandr Cheban-Lianka to everyone at the meeting to sign the final protocol, and therefore, received his deserved memorable copy of the protocol. It is worth mentioning that it was the first time when the candidate appeared in the district commission during the electoral process.
Yurii Kruk as a good candidate, of course, thanked all the commission members for tremendous preparation and conduct of the election, and, of course, its results.
The candidate stressed that the election had been conducted entirely in compliance with the legislation, and now a lot of work on implementation of plans awaits him.
It should be noted that this election set a record in the number of invalidated ballots. Not having found the familiar line “Against all”, voters of the district No.143 damaged 2,842 ballots with surnames of the candidates for Deputies, and 2,143 with the list of parties standing for the election to the Verkhovna Rada.
However, not all the candidate have agreed with such results. Indeed, candidate for People's Deputy in the district No.143 Ihor Pastukh even held a press conference where he spoke about the fraud during the election reported by his headquarters, and also announced his plans.
Most fraud, according to the candidate, occurred in Reni and Reni Raion. Indeed, at the entrance to Izmail from Odesa, seven buses with people were noticed, which made the candidate's observers suspicious, and, as it turned out, for good reason. At 7am, a real race took place on the streets of Izmail. As a result, already at 8.30am, the police had detained four buses with 150 people who had been taken to campaign into one of the villages.
Ihor Pastukh also reminded of the ill-fated phantom house — Peremoha (Victory) Cinema at the address of 29 Suvorov Ave, where this year over four hundred homeless people were registered. Let us remind that this fact has been bothering many political forces which participated in the election race.
Perhaps, the candidate's activity intensified after, according to the vote counting, he became the No.1 leader in the town of Izmail, which gave him reasons to assume that he could also have been first in the district if there was no fraud.
The candidate said that it was Reni where most fraud had been reported since the locals, according to Ihor Pastukh, had changed their attitude towards Yurii Kruk long ago. “Then how is it possible that he has become the leader in Reni and Reni Raion?” asked the candidate.
Representatives of the headquarters of Ihor Pastukh told that in Ozerne of Izmail Raion, power was cut from five to six pm on the election day. However, the voting process still continued, and what is interesting is that as of the moment of power cut at the station, 220 people had voted, and after power appeared, this figure had reached 470. How the same number of voters as during the whole day could vote in one hour remains unclear for the candidate's headquarters. Interestingly, voter turnout increased in the evening, which also seemed strange to the candidate. The candidate also emphasised the fact that Izmail City Hospital, which had become a special station for 151 patients, received 954 ballots.
Summarising the press conference, Ihor Pastukh informed that he wanted to appeal against the election results in the district No.143, and not to allow people's votes to be stolen.
So despite the fact that the election results have already been announced, it is far too early to talk about the end of the electoral process...
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Civic monitoring conducted by OPORA - is a type of network activity, aimed at impartial assessment of the preparation and conduct of elections, as well as preventing violations through comprehensive civic action. Professional monitoring at all stages of the election process indirectly influences the quality of the campaign. The public opinion, both foreign and domestic is formed through gathering and spreading of information among the target audience.
From a strategic perspective public monitoring of elections focuses upon improving the system and certain procedures.
In 2012, during Parliamentary elections in Ukraine OPORA is carrying out a large-scale campaign of long- and short term observation, organizing a statistical vote-count by the results of voting with the proportional component of the electoral system on a basis of representative selection, will provide 100% coverage of polling stations by observers in separate single-mandate majoritarian districts. OPORA observers will work in all 225 electoral districts, and 3,500 activists will join them on the voting day. Organization will use the latest means of spreading information on observation results, including infographics and interactive maps.