Start of the candidates
Already now, after the end of the election campaign for the Lutsk city mayor elections, it is expedient to give a full assessment of all those processes that took place and continue to take place around this position.
If we go back to the start of the mayoral race, the first to begin it were Taisiya Batorevych, who, having headed the "MER" fund, never became an official candidate, and Yevhen Melnyk, who promised clean government and to grind corruption in Lutsk to dust. The rest of the contenders began their campaigns much later. The intrigue remained the question of whom the current regional authorities would support in this confrontation. Anton Kryvytskyi, Sviatoslav Kravchuk, and Bohdan Shyba were named as candidates enjoying the governor's support. It was precisely on the latter that certain journalists tried to firmly hang the label "candidate from the authorities." Bohdan Pavlovych, after long hesitation, nevertheless decided to take part in the electoral race for the post of Lutsk city mayor, and thus brought into this campaign a truly competitive spirit that was frankly lacking. But what the Volyn political beau monde waited for so long, namely gubernatorial support, no one received.
Lutsk "Batkivshchyna" - against Shyba
It so happened that in these mayoral elections, three contenders with party cards of the "Batkivshchyna" party expressed a desire to compete at once. Volodymyr Lytvyniuk, officially nominated by the city inter-party conference of the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna" and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party (Onopenko's), Oleh Boiko, general director of the "Anton" construction firm, a self-nominee who is on the party register of the Lutsk district organization of the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna," and the first deputy head of the Volyn Regional State Administration Bohdan Shyba, likewise a nominee and also a member of the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna." Another follower of Yulia Tymoshenko can be considered the candidate Oleh Chernetskyi, who, although listed as a member of the Party of Patriotic Forces of Ukraine, nevertheless did not write a statement of withdrawal from "Batkivshchyna." Quite a two-party man!
Such was the broad representation of candidates for the post of Lutsk city mayor that the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna" had. Let us try to study in more detail such a manifestation of party pluralism.
Mr. Lytvyniuk prudently secured support for his person from the participants of the city inter-party conference, thus "locking in" the brand for himself - officially nominated by the BYuT. But it turns out not all that glitters is gold. The team that Lytvyniuk formed around himself and which began to run things in the city BYuT headquarters after a series of scandals and misunderstandings within the party, quite quickly found a common language with the current Lutsk city mayor. There is much evidence of this. Let us start with the fact that party members, and later the passing part of the list to the city council, included persons close to Kryvytskyi's circle. These were either officials from the city executive committee (Anatolii Biriukov, head of the organizational department of the Lutsk city council), or entrepreneurs who ran their business under the "patronage" of the former city mayor (banker Vasyl Havrylyshyn). In addition, the entire campaign of the "official" BYuT candidate was strangely directed not against the current city mayor, but against his fellow party member candidate Bohdan Shyba. Thus Kryvytskyi fought his main opponent with someone else's hands, without himself getting drawn into the struggle with him.
How did it all happen? - In the last days officially permitted by law for nomination, Bohdan Shyba submits an application to the TEC for his registration as a candidate for the post of city mayor. In his autobiography he states that he is a member of the "Batkivshchyna" party. Seeing in the actions of a fellow party member a gross violation of party discipline, the city bureau of the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna" expels Shyba from the party ranks. The latter files an appeal with higher party structures, and accordingly the regional bureau unanimously restores Shyba's party membership, canceling the decision of the lower party level.
Not calming down, representatives of candidate Lytvyniuk begin to file complaints with the TEC about alleged violations massively committed by candidate Shyba. Either they could not calm down about the party membership of the self-nominee, or they did not like the slogan of Shyba's campaign - "City mayor from the united orange team." The next "trick" that Lytvyniuk's representatives enjoyed for more than a week was the "administrative resource case." It concerns the fact that Shyba B.P. allegedly using his official position obtained confidential information, namely the addresses and names of women of the city of Lutsk, which he used for campaigning purposes - sent greeting cards. It is a pity that Lytvyniuk's team, including Mr. Pyrozhyk who especially stood out from it, did not read the Laws of Ukraine on elections, then they would not have had to blush after losing in court. The latter canceled the TEC resolution by which Shyba was removed from registration.
As we can see, a clear line of opposition to the candidate for the post of city mayor Shyba emerges. Of course, Lytvyniuk's team, for show, also sued Kryvytskyi, but the result of these "efforts" was zero.
Having analyzed the course of the election campaign in the city of Lutsk, without a doubt one of the leading places for activity can be given to the city organization of the "Batkivshchyna" party, which threw all its efforts into the struggle against ... a member of its own party, Kryvytskyi's real opponent - Shyba. Well done! To tell the truth, the regional leadership of BYuT took a more strategic and balanced position and supported Bohdan Shyba, having beforehand thoroughly frayed its nerves through constant conflicts with the city party "bosses."
Everyone against Kryvytskyi?, or - Who knows what!
Of course, our opponents may start reproaching us that we present facts one-sidedly. Possibly. After all, this is the author's view of the events that took place in our city. Therefore we tell what we saw and heard and how we perceived it.
Each candidate tried to draw attention to himself with something. Someone with a bright show, someone on the contrary - with the gray inconspicuousness of his person. The activity of each was reflected in the number of votes cast for each candidate in the end.
At first one might have gotten the impression that all candidates tried to criticize city mayor Kryvytskyi and thereby gain the support of voters. Candidates Kozhevnikov and Lytvyniuk especially demonstrated their opposition (which, however, immediately seemed to disappear somewhere after the announcement of the election results), candidates Reikina and Hil tried to criticize the current city authorities. Other candidates, if they harbored anger at mayor Kryvytskyi, spoke about it either quietly or little. Another category of candidates - those who tried to build their campaign more on the positive than on criticism. These are Shyba, Chernetskyi and Melnyk. True, if Shyba clearly set himself against Kryvytskyi and formed the image of an "alternative," then Chernetskyi built children's playgrounds, published books, held parties - evidently hoping that short-lived benefits would become dearer to people than the future of their city. Yevhen Melnyk, without opening an election fund account, took up another useful matter - he organized the escorting of schoolchildren across the road near schools. This initiative made a rather good impression on Lutsk residents, but not enough to be elected city mayor.
Later, to the active actions of Lytvyniuk's headquarters to lower Shyba's rating, the activity of candidate Kozhevnikov was added, who also set himself the goal - not to replace Kryvytskyi, but to prevent Shyba from the post of city mayor. A paradoxical thing comes out. Candidates who talk about the need for changes in the city, in fact do everything so that such changes do not happen. As we can see, history gave them its assessment - none of them even came close to the rating of Shyba or Kryvytskyi. After all, Lutsk residents do not believe lies.
Election results. The dissatisfied against Shyba
Despite all the efforts of the participants in the election process to present themselves as worthy of the post of city mayor, the main struggle already during the vote count was really between two candidates - the current city mayor Anton Kryvytskyi and the self-nominee with significant managerial experience Bohdan Shyba. Practically these two candidates fought until the counting of election results at the last polling station. Shyba's advantage over Kryvytskyi, according to the results of parallel counting by various headquarters, including our organization, and the official results of the city TEC, was about 750 votes of Lutsk residents. In total, Bohdan Shyba was supported by over 31 thousand Lutsk residents, which amounted to about 28.5%, Kryvytskyi - about 30.5 thousand, 27.8%. The rest of the candidates did not even come close to them. Entrepreneur Oleh Chernetskyi took third place with about 10 thousand votes, Volodymyr Lytvyniuk was fourth with 8 thousand, and the honorable fifth was closed by Hennadii Kozhevnykov with 6 thousand votes of Lutsk residents.
And here the most interesting began. Complaints poured onto the city TEC like rain. First Anton Kryvytskyi demands a recount of ballots at 65 polling stations, providing only one factual piece of evidence about a possible violation at one of the polling stations. The commission considered his complaint, although it could have not done so, and even partially granted it, deciding to conduct a recount at 3 polling stations and check packages with ballots at six or seven more. No discrepancies that would have affected the election result were found. The next day Anton Fedorovych at an operational meeting at the city executive committee thanks his team for their work and wishes Bohdan Shyba to continue all the best undertakings in the city, thereby acknowledging his defeat in the elections. On the same day his authorized person Andrii Zhuravlov at a press conference, to which the defeated candidates gathered, makes an absolutely opposite statement, but more about that later.
The next complainant turned out to be the nominee from the Ukrainian Republican Party "Sobor" Hennadii Kozhevnikov, who could not understand how it was that he received 6 thousand votes, while his political force received only slightly more than 1000. Having provided the commission with copies of protocols received by his observers from individual polling stations, but without waiting for the commission to clarify them, he demanded a recount of ballots at individual polling stations where, in his opinion, there were violations, and to declare the city mayor elections invalid due to mass violations. The TEC conducted a reconciliation of the protocols, although it was not obliged to do so, dotted all the i's on the disputed protocols and refused to declare the elections invalid.
Volodymyr Lytvyniuk also did not lag behind his fellow candidates. He also filed an application with the commission requesting that the elections be declared invalid, but already because of completely different violations that had nothing to do with the voting process. Apparently Mr. Lytvyniuk's team did not notice in time the so-called violations that could be challenged only until the day of voting, therefore only after the defeat of their candidate did they begin to make "exposing statements" and accuse competitors and the city TEC of their defeat. His arguments were as follows:
1) on the ballot, the subjects of his nomination were the city organizations of the All-Ukrainian Union "Batkivshchyna" and the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party, but the name of the bloc that these political forces formed was omitted, namely the entry "Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc." Based on the documents submitted by Lytvyniuk's team during his registration as a candidate, it is indeed impossible to unambiguously establish who actually is the subject of nomination. Moreover, the decision to approve the text and form of the ballot was made in accordance with Article 63, Part 3 of the Law of Ukraine "On Elections of Deputies of Local Councils and City Mayors" 25 days before the day of elections, more precisely on March 1. The TEC member representing the interests of the "Batkivshchyna" party in the commission, as well as Mr. Lytvyniuk's authorized persons, had the right, if they wished, to familiarize themselves with the decision adopted by the commission and verify the information on the ballot, but obviously did not do so. The candidate had 5 days to challenge such a decision in accordance with Article 30-1, Part 1 of the same law. But the TEC decision was never challenged before the elections. One gets the impression that Lytvyniuk's team was so carried away with removing Bohdan Shyba from registration that it did not notice how it itself made a blunder. Moreover, Mr. Lytvyniuk's desire to ride on Yulia Tymoshenko's back into the mayoral chair is surprising. On the eve of the elections, March 25, the head of the regional BYuT headquarters Yevhen Kyrylchuk informed the Lutsk TEC that Mr. Lytvyniuk is no longer a candidate for the post of city mayor from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, although this fact could no longer have any legal consequences either for the commission or for Volodymyr Lytvyniuk.
2) another point of his statement also has claims to the ballot, namely to the point where it is indicated that Bohdan Shyba's place of work is the Volyn Regional State Administration. Indeed, Bohdan Shyba on February 27 submitted an application for resignation from the post of first deputy. But everyone knows that according to labor legislation, one must work another two weeks from the moment of submitting the application, and moreover, civil servants of such rank are not dismissed with a stroke of the pen. The dismissal process dragged on, since it still had to go through the procedure of approval in the Cabinet of Ministers. At present, as Bohdan Shyba himself admits, he himself does not know whether he has been officially dismissed or not, and his employment record book is still in the personnel department of the RSA. One thing is clear - at the time of submitting the application for candidacy, Bohdan Shyba submitted absolutely reliable information, and it (the information) remained the same at the time of approval of the ballot text. So where is the violation on the part of the territorial election commission or Bohdan Shyba?
The commission essentially rejected the complaint, since it had no grounds for granting it, but at the same time "educated" the secretary of the commission for a possible error in typing the ballot text. Although it is known that the commission is a collegial body, and accordingly makes decisions collegially.
Having not received satisfaction of their complaints in the territorial commission, the above-listed candidates transferred their indignation to the Maidan, and then to the city-district court.
The rally that took place on April 2 is especially surprising, and whose organizers were the same candidates. If earlier on the Maidan everyone "washed Kryvytskyi's bones," now they took on the person whom in government and party circles they call a "pathological democrat" Bohdan Shyba, a real and alternative replacement for Kryvytskyi's team, mired in corruption scandals and suspicions.
Having filed two lawsuits at once with the demand to cancel the TEC decision on establishing the voting results and declaring Bohdan Shyba city mayor, the plaintiffs themselves (Lytvyniuk, Kryvytskyi, Kozhevnikov and Boiko) withdrew them, realizing that the court would not grant such lawsuits due to their groundlessness.
Forecast of further actions
Let us try to make a further forecast of the actions of Bohdan Shyba's opponents. It is very doubtful that these people will calm down. For "politicians" the main thing is noise around their own name, not the result.
So, after the official publication of the results of the Lutsk city mayor elections on Thursday, April 6, one should expect another statement demanding that the elections be declared invalid from the team of the defeated candidates, which will be based on Mr. Lytvyniuk's previous claims.
Already now various provocateurs are visiting the territorial commission telling that the elections are being declared invalid throughout Ukraine, that they will be declared so in Lutsk too, etc.
It is not excluded that there will be people who will exert moral pressure on the commission, threaten individual members of it in order to cancel the election results. We also do not exclude that there may be attempts to bribe TEC members, and later judges. Already now rumors are beginning to circulate around the city that one judge was offered a decent sum for the needed decision on the city mayor elections.
One thing is clear, that the saga with the city mayor elections and his taking office may drag on until Easter, and the city, remaining without a master, will meet it not in the most attractive form.
Perhaps it is time to stop playing games, gentlemen candidates, and let the new team get to work?
We are confident that the new city mayor can direct the energy of all for the good of the city, if only You have the desire. And our organization will closely observe and analyze this.