All news

Local election in Ukraine show people’s tiredness of authorities — Duma deputy

According to the lawmaker, the current situation in Ukraine shows that people have no one to vote for, and the organization of the elections was at "a small-town level"
A local man at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO
A local man at a polling station in Kiev, Ukraine
© EPA/SERGEY DOLZHENKO

MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/. Local election in Ukraine demonstrated that the population grew tired of the authorities, State Duma’s International Affairs Committee first deputy chairman Leonid Kalashnikov said on Monday.

"People started to get tired, on one hand, from brown pseudo-patriotic rhetoric of the authorities, and on the other hand, they do not completely believe that anything can be solved by elections," Kalashnikov said.

According to the lawmaker, the current situation in Ukraine shows that people have no one to vote for, and the organization of the elections was at "a small-town level". "It was a very dilettante approach that manifested itself in how bulletins, for instance, were printed in Mariupol. I could not imagine any printing house making ballot papers that were not checked by the election commission in advance. This small-town approach stirred controversy not only in Mariupol, but in several other towns as well," Kalashnikov said adding that the record number of violations was registered during Sunday’s local election in Ukraine.

Local election were held in Ukraine on October 25. Polling stations did not open in Mariupol and Krasnoarmeysk due to problems with bulletins. Elections commissions later recognized election in Luhansk Regions’ Lisichansk and Svatovo as invalid. Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada will have to introduce amendments to the law that stipulate holding election in these settlements during the second round.