Cosmic elections or astronomical farce?

Courtesy of M. F.

Voter turn out was unexpectedly low in Sunday’s local government election: initial reports quoted 48%, but the Kyiv Territorial Electoral Commission was saying more than 53% by March 28. The TEC has 5 days after E-Day to establish official results (presumably by Friday). This posting is based on preliminary returns from 964 of 1,026 polling stations.

Blocs/parties in Kyiv Rada	May '08 Seats*	March '06 Seats	Difference
Leonid Chernovetsky Bloc	43	21	22
Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc	32	41	-9
Vitaly Klitschko / Pora PRP	15	14	1
Volodymyr Lytvyn Bloc	11	6	5
HAK Hrom. Aktyv	8	7	1
Party of Regions	6	9	-3
Mykola Katerynchuk Bloc / Nasha Ukrayina	5	15	-10
* Source: Ukrayinska Pravda.com.ua , 964 of 1026 poll stations reporting

An alarming majority of apathetic, inebriated or otherwise incapacitated voters opted out of the electoral process. As a result, 1% in the final election tally equaled 10,000 votes, according to Ukrayinska Pravda. With that math, a party/bloc needed to “organize” only 30,000 ballots to secure a spot in the city council sun. The fact that more than 30 parties and electoral blocs split 15% of the popular vote also made life easier for the 7 political forces that qualified for rada with at least 3%.

4 more years of “Cosmos”?
Kyiv mayor L. Chernovetsky appears to have come away the big winner from Sunday’s snap election in Ukraine’s capital city: he bested his March 2006 mayoral results by more than five to 37 percent in May 2008.
The anti-Chernovetsky vote was efficiently split, most notably by Yu. Tymoshenko Bloc mayoral candidate O. Turchynov (19%) and V. Klitschko (18%). (One for the “told you so” files). Klitschko’s support fell from 24% fourteen months ago, but the former heavyweight boxing champ will still have a 15-member caucus in the Kyiv rada. His bloc has vowed to prove electoral law violations and challenge the results in the courts.

Kyiv Rada math
Chernovetsky’s eponymous bloc gained 17% and 22 seats in the Kyiv Rada and will now have 43. His will be the largest caucus and best suited to court coalition allies in the 120-seat chamber.
Reports suggest that L. Chernovetsky bloc will likely find common ground quickest with the V. Lytvyn Bloc and the Hromadsky Aktyv Kyeva, because they are political projects financed by business partners V. Khmelnytsky and A. Ivanov, with whom the mayor has done business. Together, these 3 caucuses have enough for 62 seats.

Coalition Combos for 120-seat Kyiv Rada*
Chernovetsky + Lytvyn + HAK	62
Chernovetsky + Lytvyn + HAK + Regions	68
Tymoshenko + Klitschko + Katerynchuk	52
* Source: Ukrayinska Pravda.com.ua , 964 of 1026 poll stations reporting)

The Party of the Regions’ 6 seats could further solidify the majority. One analyst suggested that the Mykola Katerynchuk Bloc could join to form a “grand coalition” in the council. That would leave the Y. Tymoshenko and V. Klitschko blocs with less than 50 seats; M. Katerynchuk’s 5 seats are not enough to form anything resembling an orange/democratic coalition.

Full party lists:
http://kiev.pravda.com.ua/publications/4839d358c201e/

“Leonid Chernovestky vyhrav match na svoyemu poli,” Ukrayinska Pravda.com.ua, 26.05.08:
http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/26/76527.htm

2: Exit Poll on May 25

This reporter is hightailing out of the crazy capital city for all the chaos of the Kyiv city council and mayoral elections this Sunday.

Not to worry – all the ground work on Election Day will be completed by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS) who is fielding 200 interviewers to poll 10,000 voters as they leave 100 of Kyiv’s 1,000+ polling stations. KIIS says the coverage should result in an error rate in the 3% range.

The interviews will be conducted between 8 AM and 10 PM Kyiv time (EST+7), and the results will be announced on ICTV’s Fakty news program shortly after 10 PM: http://www.ictv.ua

On the web, the exit poll results will be made available by Democratic Initiatives Foundation at the site: http://www.exitpoll.org.ua

KMIS/KIIS website: www.kiis.com.ua

BBC's "Greatest" goes sour in Ukraine

cover of Segodnya issue with Tabachnyk interview

The scandal surrounding the Ukrainian version of BBC’s popular 2002 “Greatest Britons” popular history TV project is being portrayed by Ukrainian media as a battle between supporters of 10th century Kyivan-Rus ruler Yaroslav Mudry and 20th century Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera, who finished first and third by the time more than two million votes were counted on May 16.

However the supporters who should be most upset are those of football legend Valery Lobanovsky and of 18th century wandering philosopher Hryhori Skovoroda.
An investigation into the daily vote totals from the project’s last week shows that over 5,500 (5, 577) votes of support for the two “greats” vanished from the final total.

Meanwhile, a half million votes of support for Yaroslav Mudry were generated in the project’s final days causing media watchdogs to cry foul over the use of technology to dump votes in favor of one candidate over another for political purposes.



Stuffing Great Ukrainians

Final ranking	Top Ten "Great Ukrainians"	Interim Results 13.05	Final Results 16.05	Difference
2	Mykola Amosov	124,938	322,321	197,383
3	Stepan Bandera	208,926	261,247	52,321
6	Valery Lobanovsky	54,181	51,564	–2617
8	Hryhory Skovoroda	31,050	28,090	–2960
9	Lesia Ukrayinka	23,295	26,590	3,295
10	Ivan Franko	22,205	24,247	2,042
5	Bohdan Khmelnytsky	52,127	64,931	12,804
7	Vyacheslav Chornovil	36,661	42,743	6,082
4	Taras Shevchenko	93,354	150,873	57,519
1	Yaroslav Mudry	63,442	648,443	585,021

Source: Vakhtang Kipiani, “Yak vkraly “Velykoho Ukrayinstya’” (How the “Great Ukrainian” was stolen), Ukrayinska Pravda website (Ukrainian lang.), May 20, 2008 Link to original: http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2008/5/20/76074.htm

SMS vote stuffing
Both Mudry and Bandera supporters organized multiple voting by fan clubs, as did the Communists (for Lenin as a “Great Ukrainian) and student clubs.

But Party of Regions’ ideologue Dmytro Tabachnyk managed to organize 585,021 votes of support for Yaroslav Mudry in the last three days of the “Great Ukrainians” project.

Mudry won with 648,443 votes. The shows presenters claimed that “Great Ukrainians” broke world records for participation with 1.6 million unique voters, who sent, phoned and texted over 2 million votes for their historical heroes.

At the after show party Tabachnyk reportedly boasted that he wanted to “screw Bandera” and told the Segodnya newspaper: “all the nationalists needed for victory was six hundred generous banderites” implying that at Hr 1 per vote, Bandera was Hr 600,000 or $120,000 short of victory. (Photo of newspaper cover above).

According to the show's chief editor Vakhtang Kipiani, 348,017 votes were cast for Mudry between May 15 and 16 and 64% of votes for the Rus rulers came in the last three days of the project (see table).

Investigation
Veteran journalist Kipiani exposed the fraud. In addition to being the chief editor of the “Great Ukrainians” project he also took part as Bandera’s celebrity endorsement and author of the 10-minute movie about the man killed by Moscow by 1959.

According to telephone company records Kipiani obtained, 15,454 SMS were sent from a single phone number “in packets” over the course of 18 hours the night before the final program aired.

“After the scandalous final I obtained a certain portion of insider information and can confirm: the announced results, allegedly based on 1,621,049 viewer votes, are a mass-scale manipulation of public opinion,” Kipiani wrote.

Tabachnyk’s past screwings

Tabachnyk has been involved in vote falsification in the past, most notably in the publication of falsified electoral results of the second round of the 2004 presidential elections (also electronically-manipulated by “transit servers”) in the parliamentary Holos Ukrayiny newspaper.

On a personal note: In this reporter’s opinion the top three should have been Taras, Ivan and Lesia. It was honor enough to see Bandera make the top ten: a Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll from December 2007 showed Bandera ranking 14 of the top 20, among 60% of respondents who said they could “name a great Ukrainian.” In that poll, Taras Shevchenko was the hands-down country-wide winner from Lviv to Luhansk.

4: Vote-buying bonanza!

Make money with your vote, but make it count using your mobile phone camera and cellophane

Vote-buying for the imminent Kyiv mayoral and city council elections is “massive,” according to the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, a veteran elections watchdog NGO.

“We are receiving many reports of vote-buying in Kyiv. And it is occurring on a massive scale, with tens of thousands of votes already being bought,” said Ihor Popov, CVU head at a May 20 press conference at the UNIAN news agency.

Popov said the vote buying bonanza will last right up to the elections. The CVU report “urges law-enforcement authorities to detect every such a case.”

But the NGO also offered some very practical advice “if a voter wants to make money by providing mobile phone-photograph evidence of their ballot. The CVU suggests placing transparent cellophane on top of the ballot and marking the names of candidate and political forces names that are parties to the ‘purchase’ agreement … on the actual ballot place the mark in the row that corresponds to the voter’s real choice.”

The CVU said that several political forces are active on the retail electoral market and that the practice of signing “social agreements” with voters who provide passport data for material remuneration has been employed for at least five years in Ukraine.

The practice “has proven successful in the past: according to the organizers of these crimes, around half of the people who received funds voted for their political force,” Popov said. But it will not be as effective in Kyiv this time around.

“Our data shows that students living in student housing have sold their votes three-four times and are waiting for the next client. I think that they will destroy this practice, as control is impossible,” Popov said.

The CVU expects a voter turn-out between 55-60% this Sunday. In the Sept. 2007 snap Rada elections, voter turn-out was over 63%: of 2.2 million eligible voters, 1.4 million ballots were cast at 1,028 stations.

Seventy candidates and more than 35 political parties and blocs are in the running for the post of capital city mayor and 120 seats in the Kyiv Rada.

UNIAN report: http://www.unian.net/news/print.php?id=252034
Committee of Voters of Ukraine: http://www.cvu.org.ua/

Criminality of Holodomor denial

Ukraine’s first president recalls how his job was once to deny the Holodomor and dispels drought myth

In the chapter “Peredden” (The day before) of his autobiography, President Leonid Kravchuk recalls the shake-up that occurred in the Communist Party of Ukraine after Volodymyr Ivashko was elected leader and replaced Volodymyr Shcherbytsky in Sept. 1989. Seventeen years of zastoi-ful rule under Shcherbytsky – Leonid Brezhnev’s fellow Dnipropetrovsker – brought humanity many memorable moments including Shcherbytsky’s denial that a nuclear disaster had occurred at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April, 1986. The Communists were experts at denial and the disinformation campaign against the Holodomor spanned decades. Earlier in his career as a communist ideologist, Leonid Kravchuk was responsible for countering the Ukrainian Diaspora’s public education campaign of the 1980s, marking 50 years of the Soviet terror famine in 1983. That’s when Kravchuk, by his own words, first learned the truth of the matter:

“Thanks to the position of the new leader of the republican communist party, Ukraine saw its first book on the Holodomor. That was, without exaggeration, a bold move. I do not want to speak ill of Shcherbytsky but I could not imagine a similar publication appearing when he was first person of the republic. Ivashko instructed me to collect the necessary materials. I was already familiar with this bitter subject. In the early 1980s many publications began appearing in the Western press on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of one of the most horrific tragedies in the history of our people. A counter-propaganda machine was put into motion, and I was one of its “wheels.” It was then, in 1984 I believe, that I first had an opportunity to study a small selection of archival materials. What I read and saw astonished me. It was total terror and I constantly chased away the idea that these pitiful people were doomed to torture by design. That understanding came several years later.”

“When Ivashko instructed me to find materials for the future book, I do not think he could imagine the scope of this tragedy. He had perhaps heard something, but I think he believed that it was nothing but rumors. Volodymyr Antonovych probably thought the publication would dispel those rumors.”

“It soon became apparent that neither Ivashko nor I (already somewhat familiar with these materials) could grasp the entire scope of the evil. With an opportunity to study the materials more closely, I felt a second shock, far more powerful than the one experienced in 1984. The crime was so horrible and the Communist Party’s guilt so apparent, that I lost the ability to think about anything else. I had always enjoyed a strong sleep, even in hostile conditions. But now I first encountered insomnia: the faces of the children killed by famine stood before my eyes constantly. I began to feel remorseful as I realized that I belong to an organization that can justifiably be called criminal. At the same time I did not want to associate the monsters guilty of murdering millions of my countrymen with many of the honest and respectable communists whom I knew and worked with.”

“The selected materials and photographs (one and half thousand, I believe) were passed on to the first secretary. Ivashko telephoned me soon thereafter. His voice was trembling: ‘This can’t be so!’ He refused to believe and I understood why. He ordered a publication ban until such time that evidence was found that the famine was not artificial. Ivashko ordered me to see if there were droughts in Ukraine in those years. I sent a request to the republican Hydromedtsentr state hydrological center but they did not keep those kinds of records. I sent requests to appropriate services in Moscow and they provided very detailed information. It showed that rainfall levels for those years were not lower than acceptable norms. This was a very serious argument and Ivashko decided to raise the issue at a meeting of the politburo. The discussion was not easy, but thanks to the principled nature of the first secretary, the book’s publication was approved. Many were understandably displeased with the decision. However, the most terrifying photographs were not approved for print, and their number was reduced from 1,500 to around 350.”

Kravchuk, Leonid Mayemo te, shcho mayemo: spohady i rozdumy, Kyiv, 2002, Stolittya (392 p.) ISBN 966-95952-8-2 , pp. 44-46, English translation mine

Holodomor-denial on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_denial

Uke Aussie Football Legend

Austrian-born Australian Ukrainian Alex “Jezza” Jesaulenko was made “Legend of the Game” by the Australian Football Hall of Fame in Melbourne on May 8. It is the highest honor in the game and has only been bestowed 21 times before Jezza was made.

Jezza was born in end-of-WW2 Salzburg, Austria to Ukrainian parents, Vasyl and Vera. They immigrated into Australia in 1949. In 2002, Jesaulenko was inducted into the Ukrainian Sports Hall of Fame.

Must-see Footage of Jesulaenko’s Mark of the Year in the 1970 Grand Final of Australian Rules Football:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3WDa96XYog
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H8MbFVJHUw

UCSJ Bigotry Monitor Headlines

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL URGES BELARUS TO RELEASE AILING U.S. NATIONAL

SUSPECTED NEO-NAZI DOUBLE MURDER IN MOSCOW

NEO-NAZI ATTACKS RESULT IN HIGH HATE CRIME FIGURES FOR APRIL IN RUSSIA

GIRL, 16, JAILED FOR BEATING FEMALE KENYAN STUDENT AND STABBING ARMENIAN MAN (Russia)

COLLEGE STUDENT CHARGED WITH PRODUCING NEWSPAPER INCITING ETHNIC HATRED (Russia)

GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ATTACKED (Russia)

OPPOSITION GROWS TO NEW RESTRICTIONS IN MEDIA LAW (Russia)

JEWISH CEMETERY VANDALIZED IN GEORGIA

BIGOTRY MONITOR, A Weekly Human Rights Newsletter on Antisemitism, Xenophobia, and Religious Persecution in the Former Communist World and Western Europe, EDITOR: CHARLES FENYVESI Published by UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union, http://www.fsumonitor.com/

2008 Foreign Troops in UA

Nearly 3,000 foreign troops (2,940) will spend more than three months (142 days) on the territory of Ukraine throughout 2008. But Russia will still maintain the largest foreign troop presence in Ukraine, with its Black Sea Fleet based in Crimea.

Back in April, the Rada approved the multinational list of joint military exercises to be held in Ukraine throughout the year. An April issue of the Army’s Narodna Armiya magazine published details of the exercises, including a sample of the modern military hardware Ukrainians will see: 60 light wheeled vehicles, 15 ships, 12 airplanes, 12 helicopters and 2 submarines. This list is far from complete, as details of the armaments and hardware are only provided for 4 of 11 exercises (see second table).

Conspicuously missing from the report are the names, dates and numbers for bilateral air defense exercises with the Rossiyska Federation. So who knows how many Russian airplanes and pilots are in Ukraine at any one time? Not to mention the 25,000 service men of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and its 388 maritime vessels (including 14 submarines).

2008 months	Country	Exercise	# Foreign troops, days
ongoing	Russia	air defence	unspecified
May-July	Belgium	tactical	300, 20 days
May-Aug.	Moldova	South-2008	30, 7
unspec.	Belarus	tactical	50, 7
July	US	Sea Breeze	1,000, 25
July-Sept.	US	Combined Effort (aviation)	100, 14
Aug.-Sept.	US	Rapid Trident (command)	750, 15
Aug.-Sept.	Slovakia	Slavs for Peace	30, 7
Aug.-Oct.	Romania	tactical	30, 7
Sept.	multi	SOFEX	300, 15
Sept.-Nov.	Poland, Canada, Lithuania	Maple Arch	350, 25

Exercise name	Foreign troops (#)	Military Hardware
Sea Breeze	1,000	40 vehicles, 15 ships, 2 submarines, 4 airplanes, 4 helicopters
Combined Effort	100	10 vehicles, 4 airplanes, 2 helicopters
Rapid Trident	750	10 vehicles, 2 airplanes, 2 helicopters
Sofex	300	2 airplanes, 4 helicopters

17: Dr. Ironfist’s $17 bln blow

Specialists from the Klitschko Bloc estimate that each Kyivan has lost around Hr 25,000 ($5,000) in a year of rule under Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky. The Bloc’s press service told LIGABiznesInform that the value of land that was sold off “dirt cheap to various structures amount to, at a minimum, to Hr 85 billion ($17 bln).
During the scandalous Kyiv Rada session of Oct. 1 2007 alone, 4% of city land was doled out, with a market value of Hr 50 billion.
“The city budget received crumbs from that amount with most of the money sitting the the pockets of the dealmakers. If that wealth was distributed among all Kyivans – from children to pensioners – than every capital city resident would get close to 25 thousand hryvnia.”
The Klitschko Bloc promises to increase per resident wealth from several hundred hryvnia to several thousand hryvnia per year, if their man and political force are elected on May 25.

http://news.liga.net/news/N0822038.html

17: Fake Byut tents and newspapers

The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc charges that a fake issue of the Vechirny Visti newspaper is being circulated in the capital city and that false campaigners working out of Byut tents are gathering signatures from citizens, promising them an “honorarium” if Byut does well in the snap municipal poll. Prime Minister Tymoshenko has asked prosecutors to lay criminal charges on the people who paid for the fake interviews with her and Vice Premier Oleksandr Turchynov – also Byut’s mayoral candidate. Turchynov said that his fake interview contained false financial promises, reports LIGABiznesInform.

http://news.liga.net/news/N0823850.html

4 Kyiv mayors in 4 elections since '94

A look at the battles for capital city chief, their victors and second-place finishers. Two-round mayoral elections are nothing new to Kyiv - that's how Leonid Kosakivsky beat Volodymyr Cherniak from Rukh in 1994. There have been two mayors named Leonid, and two Hryhoris who failed in their electoral bids.

Year	Winner	%	Runner-up	%
1992	Ivan Saliy		appointed
1994*	Leonid Kosakivsky	30	Volodymyr Cherniak	22
1996	Oleksandr Omelchenko		appointed
1999	Oleksandr Omelchenko	76	Hryhori Surkis	17
2002	Oleksandr Omelchenko	73	Hryhori Omelchenko	18
2006	Leonid Chernovetsky	32	Vitaly Klitschko	24

* - Election was held in two rounds. Round one: Kosakivsky 17%, Cherniak 15%, Saliy 13%

18: $100 x 2 million voters

The Gorshenin Institute’s Kost Bondarenko offered an estimate of the dollars being spent per vote in the Kyiv mayoral campaign. Bondarenko said that most election headquarters are resorting to the outright purchasing of votes – up to $100 per vote.

“This means that in Kyiv there is no competition between political programs or personalities, representatives of various political forces. At this moment the Kyiv campaign has been reduced to a battle of technologies with direct purchasing of voter votes,” said Bondarenko, according to the May 6 UNIAN commentary.

Meanwhile, the Kyiv Territorial Election Commission announced that there will be 1,026 polling stations open across the capital city on May 25.

In the Sept. 2007 snap Rada elections, voter turn out was over 63% in the seven electoral districts across the capital city: of 2.2 million eligible voters, 1.4 million ballots were cast at 1,028 stations.

Thus, the $100 per vote value would place the campaign in the $140 to $220 million range. That seems high, but is another reason why elections should be held more often – say once a year, with voters getting paid at the polling station upon casting their ballot. Such a measure could arguably help counter falsification, as voters would be sure to show up to collect at least a hundred bucks, in their hryvnia equivalent, naturally.

Poll gives Chernovetsky convincing lead

Two media outlets quoting presumably the same polling results reported drastically different numbers in the race for Kyiv mayor. The reports conflict on whether incumbent mayor Leonid Chernovetsky’s rating is 34.6 or 47.2 percent. The numbers for number on contender Vitaly Klitschko cover a five point spread.
On May 6, Ukrainian News reported numbers from Ukrainian Sociology Service’s poll of 1,500 respondents that was conducted in two phases between April 19 and 30 and has an error margin of 2.6%.

Candidate	%
Chernovetsky	34.6
Klitschko	15.5
Turchynov	5.7
Omelchenko	4.1
Katerynchuk	3.9
Against all	2.7
Pylypyshyn	2.3
Tiahnybok	1.5
Horbal	1.2
Other parties	2.3
Undecided	15.5
Will not vote	7.9
Sums up to only	97

Poll of 1,500 respondents, April 19-30, statistical error: 2.6%
Source: http://uv.ukranews.com/k8/

Meanwhile, the same day a LIGABiznesInform correspondent reported slightly different numbers quoting respected sociologist Oleksandr Vyshniak, the head of Ukrainian Sociology Service.

Most notable is the 12.6% difference in support for incumbent mayor Leonid Chernovetsky. The spread on Klitschko is 5%.

Candidate	%
Chernovetsky	47.2
Klitschko	20.5
Turchynov	7.9
Omelchenko	4.9
Katerynchuk	5.7
Sums up only	86.2

Poll of 1,500 respondents, April 19-30, statistical error: 2.6%
Source: http://news.liga.net

That leaves 14% for the 72 other candidates, the undecided, against all, etc.

Who to believe?

DPA source of UNIAN’s distortion

UNIAN, 21.04.2008 17:29
Report: Hitler doll to sell in Ukraine
“A Ukrainian manufacturer is preparing to sell dolls of the former German dictator Adolf Hitler in local toy stores, the Zerkalo Tizhden' newspaper reported Monday, according to DPA. The 40-centimetre figure will first be available in the capital Kyiv, and like the similar-sized Barbie doll wear clothes the owner may change, according to the article.”

DPA presumably stands for “Deutsche Presse-Agentur” from the land that made the Third Reich possible in the first place.


Timeline: Date, media, title

19-25 Apr, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, UNDRESS HITLER, OR BARBIFUHRER AS A GIFT

21 Apr, UNIAN, HITLER DOLL TO SELL IN UKRAINE citing DPA

23 Apr, Russian Channel One TV, EVERY UKRAINIAN CHILD TO BE GIVEN THE HITLER TOY

23 Apr BBC TV HITLER DOLLS ON SALE IN UKRAINE

23 Apr Daily Mail, ADOLF HITLER DOLL COMES WITH CHANGE OF CLOTHES

23 Apr Telegraph ADOLF HITLER DOLLS GO ON SALE IN UKRAINE

24-29 Apr --- HOAX EXPOSED --- BBC pulls report off website

Apr 30 onwards LIES CONTINUE TO BE PERPETUATED by JTA and other media

====

BBC narrator Jane Haddon: The toy is not due to go on sale till the summer, but this footage which looks like it was filmed secretly in a shop selling collectibles, shows it's already available. The sales assistant points out the various medals and accessories that come as part of the Hitler doll set.

So what, someone showed up off the street to BBC’s offices with a video that “looks like it was filmed secretly” and the news corporation passed it off as fact? Can we be sure the footage was actually filmed in Ukraine? The only clue is that the shop worker speaks Russian.


UNIAN Report:
http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-247645.html

For media tracking: http://www.ukar.ca/shevchenko/buzyna/hitler.html

21: Katerynchuk’s 38% potential

Mayoral candidate Mykola Katerynchuk estimates that 38% of the vote in the capital city is still up for grabs. His electoral math, according to a May 3 report on UNIAN, can be summed as follows:

Chernovetsky 25%
Klitschko 20
Turchynov 10
Omelchenko 7
===========
Only 62%!

“The absolute majority of the remaining 38% of voters have not made up their minds. I consider this to be my reserve,” said Katerynchuk, whose Ken doll face adorns the European Party of Ukraine’s propaganda together with EU’s yellow stripes.

Media reported Katerynchuk as promising to extend metro subway operating hours until 2 AM if elected mayor. Mayoral and city council elections in Kyiv will be held in three weeks: on Sunday, May 25.

22: Polls mix messages

Two recent public opinion poll results paint two very different pictures of the pre-electoral preferences of capital city residents. Both were paid for press releases that appeared on the last day of April.

I. New Image Marketing Group

Mayoral candidates
Chernovetsky 31.2%
Klitschko 18.5
Katerynchuk 16.5
Turchynov 9.3
Undecided 9.3
Omelchenko 5
Against all 4.8
Horbal 1.7
Pylypyshyn 2.2
Others 1.5

Parties/blocs
Byut Tymoshenko 23.2
Chernovetsky Bloc 22.4
Klitschko Bloc 12.6
Undecided 12.1
Regions Party 8.4
Nasha Ukrayina-NS 6.5
Katerynchuk Bloc 5.1
Omelchenko Bloc 2.2
Other parties 2.1
Lytvyn Bloc 2.1
Communists 1.5
GAK Hrom. Aktyv 1.3
Socialists 1.1
Party of Greens 0.4

New Image Marketing Group
April 25-28
1,200 telephone poll of 18+
“theoretical” error: 2.8%
Representation: Andriy Prokopenko, Dmytri Gromakov, http://newimage.org.ua/


II. Sociological Forum research group

More than 60 percent of capital city residents will take part in the snap Kyiv city elections and nearly a quarter of the vote is still undecided about the vote, according to poll results presented on the last day of April. More than 14% said they will not cast their ballots on E-Day May 25.

Kyivan concerns
77.4% of respondents said they are unpleased by the city government’s allocation and management of land resources, 71.3% complained about car parking, 67.6% about the roads, 66.9% about medical services in Kyiv, 65.5% about Zhek communal utilities, 64.5% about law enforcement, 54.2% about public transport.

Mayoral candidates
Klitschko 32.8%
Chernovetsky 21.9
Undecided 11.6
Turchynov 7.2
Katerynchuk 5
Omelchenko 4.1
Pylypyshyn 4.1
Against all 3.9
Tiahnybok 1.3
Horbal 0.6 %

If the election was held in two rounds – a cause being championed by opposition forces – Klitschko would score 51.7% to incumbent Chernovetsky’s 23.8%, the poll found.

Parties/blocs
Klitschko Bloc 24.7%
Chernovetsky Bloc 16.6
Tymoshenko Bloc 15.2
Undecided 14.9
Lytvyn Bloc 5.1
Against all 4.4
Regions Party 3.9
Nasha Ukrayina-NS 3.8
Katerynchuk Bloc 3.4
Omelchenko Bloc 2.7
GAK Hrom Aktyv 1.2
Communists 1.2
Svoboda 0.9
Socialists 0.2
Others 0.2

Sociological Forum research group
4,000 apartment interviews from April 19 to 26, 400 in each of Kyiv’s 10 raions
Error: 1.5%
Rep: Volodymyr Kosenko, http://www.socio-forum.net

The discrepancies between the polls are significant in their support findings for political parties and blocs:

Bloc name, New Image, Sociological Forum
Klitschko 12.6, 24.7%
Byut 23.2, 15.2
Chernovetsky 22.4, 16.6
Regions 8.4, 3.9
Katerynchuk 5.1, 3.4

23: Clones and 1m ballots

With 37 parties and electoral bloc running for seats in the Kyiv Rada and nearly eighty candidates vying for the mayoral post in the capital city, voters will have to wrestle with meter-long ballots when they show up to vote on May 25.
The party/bloc ballot will not exceed 80 centimeters, according to the head of the territorial election commission Halyna Bilyk. It will be green in color, reported LIGABiznesInform on April 29.
But with 79 names on the mayoral ballot, voters will have to find their candidate’s name on a sheet of paper nearly 100 centimeters long. The hopefuls’ names will be listed alphabetically.

Clones & jokers
Electoral blocs numbered 30 and 23 both bear the name “Oleksandr Omelchenko” – the name of the man who served as Kyiv mayor for a decade while Leonid Kuchma was president of the country and during the Orange events. There will also be two Omelchenkos on the mayoral ballot: Oleksandr Oleksandrovych (former mayor) and self-nominated Leonid Vladimirovich Omelchenko.
The Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (#25) is challenging a last-minute change of the “Kyivsky Proryv” name (#17) to “Bloc Tymoshenko Kyivsky Proryv.” The second Tymoshenko bloc is comprised of the municipal branches of the Slavic Party and the Union of Anarchists.
Byut’s man for mayor Oleksandr Turchynov said that his political force will turn to the courts if the Territorial Electoral Commission allows the additional Tymoshenko name on the ballot and in the campaign.

For the list of 37 party and bloc names see: http://news.liga.net/news/N0822574.html
All 79 mayoral candidates: http://news.liga.net/news/N0822379.html
Byut’s beef: http://news.liga.net/news/N0822677.html