Repeated election of Rubizhne town council deputy in place of the drop-out deputy took place in constituency # 1. Based on the voting results, Nataliya Semyryazhko, member of the Republican Party of Ukraine (office assistant to MP Yuliy Ioffe) got the office.

Repeated election was scheduled by a court decision, which declared voting results of May 29 invalid upon complaint of Valeriy Kharchuk. It was Mr. Kharchuk who embodied opposition during the campaign. Mrs. Semyryazhko is deemed a member of the incumbent mayor’ team (Anatoliy Busenkov).

This time, 318 voters out of 1,605 cast their votes (19.8%), that are less than those voting on May 29 (25.6%). We believe such decrease is quite natural. At that, the number of Mrs. Semyryazhko’ supporters increased from 219 to 238. Finally, she has won the election with excellent result — 74.9% (on May 29, it was 53%).

Her core competitor, representative of the Communist Party of Ukraine Valeriy Kharchuk, has lost 19 voters and obtained 14.8% votes only (on May 29, he was supported by 16% voters). 5.3% votes have gone to Tetyana Hnylytska; Kostyantyn Semonenko (Socialist Party of Ukraine) got 2,2%.

All 5 ballot papers, which were declared invalid, bore marks in favor of Mrs. Semyryazhko; however, their appearance failed to comply with legal requirements (in two ballots, voters crossed out names of all others, except for Semyryazhko, one bears two marks in front of her name (in a box and near the name itself), and marks in two ballots were made near the candidate’s name).

4 persons cast their votes against all candidates.

Authorized representatives and observers of the candidate from the Communist Party were absent during voting and vote tabulation; to the contrary, all 5 authorized persons of Nataliya Semyryazhko and two territorial commissioners remained at the station.

It looked like commissioners and representatives of Semyryazhko were afraid of possible complaints, Thus, during vote tabulation head of the election commission demonstrated her adherence to a formal procedure in a pointed manner. For example, she proposed each commissioner look through all ballot papers in person. As for me, I was allowed to stay behind a commissioner and compare ballot papers’ content with those announced in the course of sorting.

Vote tabulation procedure took about three hours.

Is any appeal against voting results possible? As to the voting procedure, it is unlikely. However, before the polling day (in two days) opposition demanded that a town council session should be convoked and new commission members appointed. In their claims oppositionist were supported by Zynoviy Huzar, deputy head of Luhansk oblast state administration.

However, we believe that paragraph 3 of Article 23 of the Law of Ukraine On Election of Local Councils Deputies …, validating the claim, is an discretionary rule. In addition, one should remember that voting results of May 29 were declared invalid for several reasons (misuse of ballot papers, holding election from 7.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m., minutes execution in two separate sheets, participation of an authorized person of Mrs. Semyryazhko in vote tabulation), at least, the first of which requires thorough investigation, The prosecutor’s office of Rubizhne has not completed examination yet, so it is unclear who had withdrawn 61 ballot papers form the commission, marked them in favor of Semyryazhko and stuffed them into a radiator. This incident is still examined.