"Kyiv Post's" report on recent local elections held in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil has major omissions.
A different view point provided here.
Most stunning of all is a posting on BYuT's official 'Batkivshchyna' site, which accuses head of the presidential secretariat, Viktor Baloha, in no uncertain terms, of rigging the election. [quite ironic really]
Some portions from the article:
"A dangerous farce by administrative means with brutal legal and Constitutional violations took place in the Ternopil oblast on 15th of March. Administration officials led by Baloha want to represent this farce as free elections..Numerous falsifications took place during voting..Yes, the true number of people who voted did not exceed 30%, but an hour before the end of voting 20% of voting slips were cast.."
"What happened in Ternopil permits us to confirm with alarm, that yesterday a trial run of a total system of voting falsification took place which could also be employed during the presidential elections, and in all subsequent elections.."
"BYuT did not take part in this show under the name of Ternopil elections and does not recognise its results. We warned in advance about this and we thank our supporters - the greater portion of residents in this oblast - who did not take take part in this dirty business. We will challenge the results of this election in court.."
Tymoshenko and Yushchenko will have something to talk about during their flight home from Brussels tonight...
3 comments:
Did you really expect a different reaction from Tymoshenko? Of course it was predicted that she would blame the president for her failure to attain more than 8% of the vote in Ternopil. Learning that her support in the Region had fallen to staggering lows she made a deal with her new found friends the Por to completely cancel any vote at all. Now, realizing that her 15 minutes of popularity has run its course, she will,again, with the help of her buddy Yanukovich attempt to change the constitution, thereby prohibiting a public vote for the Presidentcy, allowing her to stay in power despite the lack of public support. This is the kind of Politician I want to see running Ukraine!!!
Right- what's so stunning about a report on BYUT's site? What else would they say?
You can not and should not make any assessments of the Ternopil regional election and extrapolate that into the likely outcome of the presidential election. The issues and system of voting are significant5ly different. It was creative journalism on behalf of the Kyiv Post.
For one BYuT did not fully participate in the Ternopil election (A pretty big factor)
Preliminary analysis of the results also show Party of Regions significantly gaining support in comparison to the 2007 Parliamentary elections , but again the issues in each election are significantly different in a National Parliamentary and Presidential elections then are found in a regional election.
The Ternopil elections does highlight some of the problems with the current electoral system used in Ukraine. It also demonstrates that Ukraine could benefit from adopting a preferential "Instant Run-Off' voting system. One round of voting at half the costs of the two round Presidential voting system.
Ukraine could also benefit from adopting a direct local electorate mandate system of parliamentary representation. %0 local electorates each electorate electing 9 members of parliament on a 10% quota preferntial (STV) voting system as is used in ireleand, Australia, New Zealand and some states in the USA.
Adoption of a preferential voting system limits the chances and opportunities for voter fraud. A preferential voting system is easier to identify a fraudulent voting patterns. The establishment of local electorates would also increase voter participation and direct representation whilst reducing the costs of campaigning. Its main draw back is that it regionalizes voters into a semi federation but this can also be seen as a positive.
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