NEWSBRIEFS

Ivano-Frankivsk district vote invalidated

KYIV - The Central Election Commission (CEC) on April 9 invalidated the results of the parliamentary ballot in District 90 (Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) and annulled its former decision to register Roman Zvarych (supported by Our Ukraine) as a national deputy elected from this constituency, UNIAN reported. The invalidation followed a complaint claiming that the district election commission's decision to withdraw several candidates from the ballot - including the slain Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast vice-chairman, Mykola Shkribliak - was not passed to polling stations promptly. The failure to make relevant changes to the ballots, according to the CEC, distorted the voting results. (RFE/RL Newsline)

CEC validates single-mandate results

KYIV - The Central Election Commission (CEC) on April 8 announced that the March 31 parliamentary election was valid in all single-mandate constituencies, Interfax reported. The CEC viewed 24 complaints regarding the election in those constituencies but found no reason to invalidate the ballot. Simultaneously, the CEC annulled the official protocol of district election commission No. 191 (a constituency in Khmelnytskyi Oblast) and ordered the commission to review the protocols from all polling stations in the constituency in order to remove discrepancies in reported election results. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Special status for Russian in Kharkiv?

KHARKIV - Kharkiv Oblast Vice-Chairman Volodymyr Shumilkin was elected the Kharkiv mayor in the local election on March 31, winning 35 percent of the vote, 1+1 Television reported on April 8. Mr. Shumilkin said he wants to legalize the results of a poll among Kharkiv inhabitants concerning the status of the Russian language. In the poll, which was conducted simultaneously with the election, nearly 82 percent of voters said "yes" to the following question: "Do you think that the Russian language should be used on par with the state language in all areas of public life in Kharkiv?" (RFE/RL Newsline)

Large-scale weapons theft reported

KYIV - Inter Television reported on April 8 that an organized criminal group has committed an unprecedented theft of weapons from a military arsenal. The location of the arsenal - which reportedly stores "hundreds of thousands of firearms and millions of cartridges, mines and grenades" - was not named. The gang managed to steal a total of 190 firearms, 44 RPG-26 missile launchers, some 18,000 cartridges, some 70 kilograms of TNT and various smoke grenades. Police reportedly recovered 90 percent of the stolen arms. "They are young people," Inter quoted a military prosecutor as saying about the gang. "The eldest is 33 years old. The gang was organized by a 23-year-old civilian. His brother temporarily served in the unit [guarding the arsenal] until November." (RFE/RL Newsline)

U.N. official presents Chornobyl aid

MIENSK - At a news conference in the Belarusian capital on April 6, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima unveiled three projects for social, economic and environmental rehabilitation of the areas contaminated after the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, Belapan reported. Mr. Oshima urged donors, international organizations, and the governments of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine to work together on these projects. The proposals include establishing credit unions, improving health services and promoting healthy lifestyles among children, and raising incomes of the affected population by encouraging private enterprise in agriculture. The projects fall into line with a United Nations report's recommendation that the focus of Chornobyl assistance should shift from humanitarian and technical measures to sustainable socioeconomic development for the region's residents and the more than 200,000 people who took part in cleanup efforts. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Communists lose in Crimean election

SYMFEROPOL - The Communist Party won only 28 mandates in the 100-member Crimean Supreme Council, losing to former Crimean Prime Minister Serhii Kunitsyn's bloc, which was supported by the government in Kyiv, Moloda Ukraina reported on April 4. Mr. Kunitsyn's bloc took 39 mandates. Representatives of Crimea's Tatar community obtained seven seats in the autonomous legislature, while the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (United) will have three deputies. The general picture of the election on the peninsula is still unclear because the work of the Crimean Election Commission has been paralyzed by the non-participation in its sessions of several members associated with the Communist Party. In addition, the results of voting in several Crimean constituencies have been questioned by contestants. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Election watchdog criticizes balloting

KYIV - The Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) said it believes that the March 31 parliamentary elections were the "worst organized" poll in the country's history, New Channel Television reported on April 5. According to CVU estimates, some 15 percent of the public was unable to vote because of long lines at polling stations. Widespread violations include voting in areas outside the voting booth and the fact that most polling stations were still open after 8 p.m., which was the voting closure time. CVU Chairman Ihor Popov said, however, that calls to invalidate the election should not be heeded by election authorities. "It would be very undesirable ... to disregard the will of the people who voted at these elections and who waited in these queues and who fainted in these queues but who cast their ballots," Mr. Popov noted. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Ukraine wants to attend NATO summit

KYIV - Vadym Hrechaninov, the head of Ukraine's Atlantic Council, said in Kyiv on April 4 that Ukraine is willing to attend the planned NATO summit in Prague in November, UNIAN reported. The agency said Mr. Hrechaninov "stressed that the Ukrainian state is again standing before a decision - either to be with NATO, or to remain with Russia." The Ukrainska Pravda website called Mr. Hrechaninov's pronouncement "direct blackmail." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Authorities accused of stealing jail vote

KYIV - Ukraina Moloda wrote on April 4 that none of the opponents of the pro-presidential For a United Ukraine bloc won a single vote in jails in Luhansk (eastern Ukraine). According to the newspaper, such suspicious unanimity of inmates points to vote rigging. "The intellectual level of those who organized this crude rigging is appalling," Ukraina Moloda wrote, adding, "Even back in Soviet times, when nobody could control the bureaucrats, they did not risk declaring their 100 percent victory. There were always some .02 percent of 'renegades' who voted against the inviolable bloc of the Communists and the unaffiliated. But here we have chemically pure unanimity: the criminal world is for the For a United Ukraine bloc." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Dnipropetrovsk deputies join FUU bloc

DNIPROPETROVSK - Sixteen of the 17 winning candidates in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast's single-mandate constituencies have announced their intention to join the For a United Ukraine bloc, UNIAN reported on April 4. The 16 candidates, who ran as independents, include former Security Service of Ukraine Chief Leonid Derkach and Viktor Pinchuk, President Leonid Kuchma's son-in-law. They issued a joint statement saying that only For a United Ukraine can effectively defend the interests of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast's residents in the Parliament. They also thanked Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Chairman Mykola Shvets for supporting them during the campaign "with the authority of the head of regional administration." (RFE/RL Newsline)

Pundit says Kuchma sees no successor

KYIV - Mykola Tomenko, the director of the Kyiv-based Institute of Politics, told journalists on April 4 that the parliamentary election showed that Ukraine has only two realistic candidates for presidential elections, Our Ukraine leader Viktor Yushchenko and Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, UNIAN reported. According to Mr. Tomenko, both For a United Ukraine Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn and Social Democratic Party Chairman Viktor Medvedchuk failed to pass a "presidential test" in the parliamentary ballot because of poor results of their blocs in the proportional poll. "President [Leonid Kuchma] faces serious problems and, for the time being, has no [presidential] candidate of his own," Mr. Tomenko added. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Proportional vote said to be valid

KYIV - Central Election Commission Chairman Mykhailo Riabets said on Ukrainian Television on April 3 that the results of the March 31 proportional vote, in which 225 parliamentary seats were contested under a party-list system, are valid and cannot be disputed. Mr. Riabets was commenting on a complaint by the Bloc Against All, which wants a new vote count and invalidation of all the ballots carrying the "canceled" stamp over the bloc's name. Bloc Against All leader Mykola Haber said the bloc has found that some 90 percent of the ballots had such a stamp. Mr. Riabets said only an insignificant number of the ballots carried such a stamp, which was placed erroneously against the bloc as a whole instead of against a disqualified candidate of the bloc. (RFE/RL Newsline)

CEC reports on invalidated ballots

KYIV - Central Election Commission Chairman Mykhailo Ryabets noted on April 3 that the decision on a vote recount in a single-mandate constituency may be made only by the relevant district election commission. He added that the CEC has already received more than 10 complaints demanding vote recounts and passed those complaints to appropriate district election commissions. Mr. Riabets said the CEC had invalidated nearly 950,000 ballots cast in the proportional poll in the nationwide constituency, and added that the number of ballots invalidated by district election commissions was "slightly" higher. The previous day, Mr. Riabets had announced that the numbers of invalidated ballots was approximately 912,000 in the nationwide constituency and 1.32 million in the 225 single-mandate constituencies. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Three Crimean districts' votes' invalidated

SYMFEROPOL - The Crimean Election Commission announced on April 3 that it invalidated the election to the Crimean autonomous legislature in three districts, UNIAN reported. According to reports based on unfinished vote counts in those three districts, candidates from the Hrach Bloc (the Communist Party) were poised to win in all of them. The Crimean Election Commission said the Hrach Bloc obtained 25 seats in the 100-member Crimean legislature, while the rival Kunitsyn Team won 39 seats. The fate of Crimean Parliament Chairman Leonid Hrach as a candidate for a seat in the Crimean Supreme Council is still unclear. Mr. Hrach's litigation over his disqualification from the election in Crimea was not concluded prior to March 31, and his name remained on the ballot. Mr. Hrach obtained more votes than other candidates in his constituency, but Crimean Election Commission Chairman Ivan Poliakov said he is sure that the vote in Mr. Hrach's constituency will be invalidated. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Lawmakers cry foul over election

KYIV - Addressing the last session of the current Verkhovna Rada on April 5, Communist Party Chairman Petro Symonenko demanded that the Central Election Commission, the Internal Affairs Ministry, and the Security Service of Ukraine present reports to the Verkhovna Rada on the parliamentary election. According to Mr. Symonenko, the March 31 ballot was Ukraine's dirtiest and most cynical in the past 10 years. He added that gross election violations "have crushed the sprouts of civil society" in the country. Oleksander Turchynov from the Fatherland Party told the Parliament that the pro-presidential For a United Ukraine election bloc "stole" its mandates on March 31. Speaking to journalists later in the day, Mr. Turchynov said there are reasons to believe that the authorities took 5-7 percent of votes from other parties and added them to those cast for For a United Ukraine. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Police arrest German bank robbers

RIVNE - Ukrainian police on April 3 arrested three armed men who recently robbed a bank in Germany, Ukrainian and international media reported. The arrests were the culmination of a two-day police chase over 1,600 kilometers through Germany, Poland and Ukraine, and the men's female hostage was freed. Ukrainian police official Oleksander Hapon, who led the operation to free the hostage, said the three gunmen are German citizens and residents of Hamburg. Ukrainian police passed the gunmen a cellular phone near Lutsk, and Mr. Hapon convinced them to surrender at Rivne (western Ukraine). Another woman taken hostage by the robbers managed to escape during a refueling stop near Lublin in Poland. Polish Internal Affairs Minister Krysztof Janik commented that Polish police allowed the robbers to pass unchallenged because their primary concern was to ensure the safety of the hostages. (RFE/RL Newsline)

Duties imposed on carbon steel wire

WASHINGTON - The Commerce Department announced its preliminary determination that carbon steel wire rod from seven countries is being sold in the U.S. market by as much as 369 percent below fair value and required importers to immediately begin posting bonds or cash deposits in the amount of the preliminary margins. By country, the anti-dumping duties range up to 65.76 percent on imports from Brazil; 7.36 percent, Canada; 14.56 percent, Germany; 25.70 percent, Mexico; 369.10 percent, Moldova; 12.38 percent, Trinidad and Tobago: and 129.52 percent, Ukraine. The preliminary duties are subject to verification by the Commerce Department. (PR Newswire)

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 14, 2002, No. 15, Vol. LXX

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