Pre-election period

Pre-election situation

The by-elections to the Supreme Council of Autonomous Republic of the Crimea in a single-mandate district #30 (Zaliznychny rajon of Simferopol) were appointed on September 22, 2002 according to the decision of the Election Commission of ARC. The elections took place simultaneously with by-elections in single-mandate districts #25 and #98 (Tsentralny rajon of Simferepol and Radyansky rajon of the ARC correspondingly).

On July 12, 2002 the sessions of Simferopol and Radynsky local councils agreed upon unprecedented quantity of district election commissions (more than 30 persons).

But on July 17 the district commissions started working according to different Calendar schedules of the main organizational events for the election campaign. The point is the Articles 43 and 45 of the Law of Ukraine “on the Elections to the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea”, which regulate by-election procedures, draw different deadlines for the election campaign.

Besides, if the by-elections (electoral district #30) were supposed to be held using those lists of voters, which were prepared for the parliamentary elections on March 31, 2002, and on the same poling stations, so the by-elections in the electoral district #25 stipulated to create new lists of voters, possibility to change quantity and numeration of the polling stations.

Basing on it, the district election commission #30 approved the previous dislocation and numeration of the 11 electoral districts (## 33 – 43 included). Unlike the electoral district #25, the electoral district #30 contains some particular polling stations: polling station #30 (military hospital), #37 (Republican mental hospital), #38 (Medical University), which could cause the influence of administrative resource on the results of the by-elections in the electoral district #30.

Another factor, which effected the results of the elections in the district, was enormously big polling boards’ staff (more than 30 persons), that means that on September 22, 2002 these commissions wouldn’t be able to collect a necessary quorum.

But the district election commission #30 registered 15 candidates standing for MP of the Supreme Council of ARC in the electoral district #30,later on 5 of them refused to participate in the election campaign.

The strongest competitors were the following: Volodymyr Konstantynov – Director General of “Console” company, which acts as a lobby of Kunitsyn’s team, Vasyl Khmelnytsky – better known as “Myrymsky’s friend” (Myrymsky was standing for the elections in the electoral district #25), Lyudmyla Denysova – the representative of “Transparent power” public committee.

It’s worth mentioning that during the election campaign the district election commission #30 was not sued at all. But we can not say the same about the candidates. Thus, local court of Simferopol dealt with the case against l. Denysova, who was charged with bribing voters. According to the data of Crimean organization of CVU, the proxy person of L. Denysova was video-filmed while distributing free food.

E-DAY

Voting

The total number of voters registered in the electoral district # 30 was 14 367 voters (at 8.00 on September 22, 2002) – so there was the same amount of ballot papers issued. By 20.00 the turnout (including those, who were registered in additional lists) was 15 846 voters. At 12.00 the turnout was 3 979 voters, at 16.00 – 6 817, at 20.00 – 8 765 (which is 55, 31%).

According to final protocols collected by CVU observers, Vasyl Khmelnytsky won the most votes (4 349 or 49,73%), Volodymyr Konstantynov won 3 011 votes (34,43%), Panas Ivanov won 265 votes (3,03%), Ivan Zhytnyuk and L. Denysova got 106 and 105 votes correspondingly (1,21% and 1,2%).

The violations fixed by Crimean organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine

During the E-day the CVU observers fixed a lot of rough violations of the electoral legislation: 3% votes were so-called “dead souls”, inhabitants of those buildings, which do not exist any more, bribes given to the voters, selling of ballot papers.

The most wide spread violations registered by CVU observers was refusal to submit the list of voters to the observers.

In general, only 40 claims were sent to the district election commission # 30, (though the total quantity of claims was much bigger).

By today the Election Commission of the Autonomous republic of the Crimea didn’t adopted the protocol on the results of the by-elections held in the single-mandate district # 30.

The bribing of voters, violation of electoral rights resulted in starting criminal procedure. The department on criminal combating elicited all the electoral documentation of the district. The legal proceeding has been going on.