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Ukraine CEC to check originals of protocols of Rada elections

Fifth day of the struggle of the political rivals for the “right” vote count and combating falsifications promises to have a record-high number of lawsuits

KIEV, November 2 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on Friday will once again try to sum up the preliminary results of the country’s parliament election race. The fifth day of the struggle of the political rivals for the “right” vote count and combating falsifications promises to have a record-high number of lawsuits.

The decisions on the ballots’ recounting the number of which is growing, is threatening with the further delay of summarising the preliminary voting results. Last Thursday, the Kiev and Kirovograd administrative courts sanctioned a recount of votes at some polling stations. A kind of an “anti-record” was registered - the electronic system Elections 2012 that shows and updates the information on the counting of votes, practically “got stuck” barely overcoming the mark of 99 percent.

The processed data of protocols 99.61 percent of the vote have been presented on the countrywide multi-mandate constituency. By the party lists the ruling Party of Regions has won 6,103,000 votes (30.03 percent) the opposition Batkivshchina (Fatherland) - 5,840,000 votes (25.51 percent), UDAR party of Vitali Klitschko - 2,834,000 votes (13.94 percent), the Communist Party - 2.68 million (13.18 percent), Svoboda (Freedom) union - 2.121 million (10.44 percent). The remaining16 political forces have failed to overcome the 5-percent barrier required for passing to parliament, thus becoming political “outsiders.”

The main struggle for mandates in the Rada is between the majority candidates, of which half of the parliament (225 MPs) will be formed. The nominees of the Party of Regions have a strong lead here, but in eight more single-member constituencies the preliminary results of the elections have not been summed up so far.

The Ukrainian parliamentary elections took place on October 28, 2012. Unlike the two previous elections, these elections used a mixed voting system (50 percent under party lists and 50 percent under simple-majority constituencies) with a 5 percent election threshold and the participation of blocs of political parties was not allowed anymore. The method of 50/50 mixed elections was used previously in 1998 and 2002. The new parliament will be appointed and start to work on December 15, 2012 (six weeks after the elections).

According to preliminary information, the new parliament will include 186 representatives of the Party of Regions, of which 72 by the party list and another 114 - in majority constituencies. The Batkivshchina party will be represented in the Rada by 62 and 42 MPs, respectively, and UDAR – by 34 and 6. The nationalist Svoboda can count on 37 seats (25 by the party list and 12 in majority constituencies). The Communist Party will not be represented by any of the candidates in majority districts, but its members can take 32 seats in the new parliament by the party list. The remaining 51 seats will be taken by self-nominated candidates and majority candidates from other parties.

The CEC has announced the decision to pay the closest attention to the verification of the preliminary results on electronic protocols with paper originals that are already coming from the district commissions. According to deputy head of the Central Election Commission Zhanna Usenko-Chernaya, the difference between the electronic data and data of the “wet stamp” protocols may be a means of fraud. “One example of discrepancies in the data of the protocols and the electronic system data was the work of the district commission number 223. After our appeal the commission corrected the data. However, now the CEC will be carefully checking information of the protocols on paper and the data that are entered into the system,” she gave an example. At the moment, the CEC has received the original of 95 protocols from 225 district commissions and the work of the commission itself is adjourned until 13:00 MSK.

The CEC of Ukraine must summarise the final results of the elections by November 12. The results will be published in the government newspaper Uryadovy Kurier.