On September 27, the process of nominating candidates for deputies of local councils in multi-mandate electoral districts and candidates for the positions of city mayors began. A significant part of the cells of Volyn top parties decided not to put off the issue of holding party conferences in a long box and already on the first day approved their electoral lists. This is what the city cells of, in particular, the United Center party, the VO "Svoboda", the VO "Batkivshchyna", the Party of Regions, Young Ukraine, and the Party of Reform and Order did. Most of them also nominated their candidates for the position of Lutsk city mayor: Volodymyr Bondar (UC), Yevhen Melnyk (Svoboda), Anatoliy Hrytsiuk (Batkivshchyna) and Ivan Smolenh (PR). In the following days, "Strong Ukraine" (Mykola Romaniuk) and "Our Ukraine" (Andriy Koziura) decided on their candidates. The incumbent Lutsk city mayor Bohdan Shyba changed his plans, that is, the party from which he will run. Previously, he held negotiations on support from the UNP, however he was officially nominated as a candidate from the "For Ukraine" party. Most politicians whom the mentioned parties officially nominated as candidates for the post of city mayor had long ago announced their intentions to participate in the elections, so there were no surprises. However, as can be seen from the results of the party conferences, different candidates assess their chances of occupying the chair of the "city chief" of Lutsk differently. For example, Ivan Smolenh (PR), Andriy Koziura (NU) and Bohdan Shyba (For Ukraine) simultaneously head the electoral lists of their parties to the city council, that is, they count on receiving at least a deputy mandate in case of defeat. Let us note certain peculiarities of the procedure for nominating candidates for deputies in different parties. Thus, at the city party conference of the VO "Batkivshchyna", after voting for the electoral list, each nominated candidate publicly took the oath of a candidate for people's representatives, while holding a hand on the Bible. Candidates from the People's Party wrote written promises to defend the interests of voters. The analogous processes at the regional level were more turbulent. These same parties held their regional party conferences on September 27-28 on nominating candidates to the regional council in the multi-mandate electoral district. The most unexpected were the results of the Party of Regions conference. All political experts were unanimous in the opinion that the candidacy for deputy of the regional council under the first number on the list of the Party of Regions of the head of the regional state administration Borys Klimchuk would significantly add to the rating of the regional members. It was precisely this variant of the list that was also proposed from Kyiv. For this, the "governor", a week before the conference, even joined the ranks of the Party of Regions. However, the rank-and-file delegates of the conference were of a different opinion – they did not want Borys Klimchuk to head their electoral list. As a result, the head of the RSA withdrew his candidacy and asked for support for nomination in a single-mandate majoritarian district. (report by the "Avers" TV channel from the PR conference - ). However, as became known later, after journalists and a CEC representative left the premises where the PR party conference was held, its second stage took place at which the regional members suddenly changed their decision and nevertheless voted for the electoral list to the regional council headed by Borys Klimchuk. However, questions arise regarding the legitimacy of such a decision. Even now it can be predicted that this issue will be very lively discussed at the meeting of the regional CEC. The process of submitting documents for registration of candidates to the CEC was interesting. Already on September 28, that is, a day before the official day of submission of documents, near the premises of the Lutsk city election commission there was a queue of representatives of political parties who sought to be the first to submit documents to the commission. After all, as is known from the law on local elections, the order of placement of parties on the ballot will depend on the date of submission of documents, that is, "whoever is faster – is higher on the list." Representatives of seven political forces held the queue all night: 1. Party of Regions, 2. Young Ukraine, 3. Our Ukraine, 4. People's Party, 5. Batkivshchyna, 6. United Center, 7. Strong Ukraine. It was in this sequence (with the exception of Our Ukraine and the People's Party, which agreed on an exchange of places in the queue) that the parties submitted their documents to the city CEC on the morning of September 29 and, in the event of registration of candidates on the electoral list, will be placed on the ballot. And in this case, events at the regional level proceeded more turbulently. Similarly to the city, on September 28 near the offices of the regional election commission there was a live queue of representatives of parties who wanted to manage to be the first to submit documents for registration of candidates for deputies in the multi-mandate electoral district. Here the CEC was ready to begin accepting documents from 00:00 on September 29. However, right before the very start of the document submission process, a dispute flared up over who should enter first, which almost came to a fight. As it turned out, a representative of the VO "Batkivshchyna" wanted to submit documents first outside the live queue, however the regional members, who here too had taken a place in advance, did not let the BYuT member through. The conflict was also fueled by a misunderstanding between the head of the regional CEC (from the VO "Batkivshchyna") and the secretary of the commission (from the Party of Regions) over the disappearance of the incoming documentation journal. The dispute lasted almost half the night. The head of the CEC even had to call law enforcement officers to somehow calm the politicians down. As a result, the situation was settled and representatives of the parties submitted documents in the sequence in which they held the queue: 1. Party of Regions, 2 Young Ukraine, 3. People's Party, 4. Our Ukraine, 5. United Center, 6. Batkivshchyna. Most likely, the work of the regional election commission will be very politicized, and disputes and conflicts will arise more than once. The next issue that may provoke a conflict will be the official registration of candidates for deputies.
Public observation campaign of the PO OPORA, www.opora.org.ua
Expert comment:
Let us note two events which, in our opinion, are indicative and defining for the political process in Volyn – the method of nominating candidates for deputies of the VO "Batkivshchyna" and Borys Klimchuk's joining the ranks of the PR: Why do politicians who, alongside their image on billboards, place photos of church hierarchs, themselves go to church while simultaneously violating church canons - forcing people to publicly swear on the Bible? And this is exactly what Yulia Tymoshenko's party members do. They could not think of a better way to teach their candidates for deputies political responsibility and consistency than to oblige them to publicly swear on the Holy Scripture, which is at a minimum hypocrisy. It turns out that the leadership of the VO "Batkivshchyna" does not trust party members already now, since it forces them to do such things. And what will happen when these persons receive deputy mandates? In a word, this looks more like a "sect" than a political association of like-minded people. Borys Petrovych "miscalculated"! This is exactly how one can assess the entry of the head of the regional state administration into the ranks of the Party of Regions. Firstly, such a step may significantly affect the level of trust in the politician in the region. Because it is one thing to be a non-partisan head of the region under the power of the regional members – one can always say something like "I work for Volyn residents, not for the party." It is another thing to be a rank-and-file member of a party that is not very well liked by Volyn residents. Secondly, the demonstrative public "rolling over" of Borys Petrovych's candidacy as the first number on the list, now already of his party, may significantly shake Klimchuk's image – a politician to whom everything within the region is subject. And the so-called continuation of the conference and change of the party decision looks more like twisting the arms of rank-and-file delegates and will subsequently be recalled more than once both to the party and to the head of the regional state administration. In addition, it is visible even to the naked eye that such a scenario of the conference was programmed. Can it really be that the friction between the head of the regional state administration and his first deputy is coming out into the public plane? Thirdly, Borys Klimchuk's entry into the ranks of the regional members significantly narrows his field for political maneuvers, because now he is obliged to carry out party decisions as well. The only "plus" in Borys Petrovych's decision is that he has more chances to keep the position for himself, because the President treats fellow party members better. Probably the latter was the main factor with which the head of the regional state administration justified to himself joining the party of power. Because under other circumstances the skilled diplomat Klimchuk would have thought of something to evade fulfilling the "instruction from Kyiv."
Mykhailo Shelep, Executive Director of the CPAVC