Ukrainian parliamentary election, 2012

The Ukrainian parliamentary election of 2012 took place on 28 October 2012.Parliament mulls Feb. 3 vote to amend Constitution
Kyiv Post (January 31, 2011)
Parliament sets parliamentary elections for October 2012, presidential elections for March 2015
Kyiv Post (February 1, 2011)
Ukraine sets parliamentary vote for October 2012
Kyiv Post (February 1, 2011)
Early parliamentary elections may take place in May - Ukraine's Yanukovych
RIA Novosti (January 25, 2010) Because of various reasons, including the "impossibility of announcing election results" various by-elections have taken place since. Hence, several constituencies have been left unrepresented at various times.

Unlike the two previous elections, this election used a parallel voting system (50% under party lists and 50% under simple-majority constituencies) with a 5% election threshold and the participation of blocs of political parties was not allowed any more.Parliament passes law on parliamentary elections
Kyiv Post (17 November 2011) The method of 50/50 mixed elections was used previously in 1998 and 2002.

The election campaign was limited to 90 days. Every citizen of Ukraine 18 years of age or older was able to vote in 33,540 polling stations in Ukraine and 116 foreign polling stations in 77 countries.After counting all ballots at 116 foreign polling stations "Svoboda" wins in parliamentary elections in Ukraine
, National Radio Company of Ukraine (29 October 2012)
No violations reported at Ukraine's overseas polling stations
ITAR-TASS (28 October 2012)

The Party of Regions won the largest number of seats while Fatherland (with several parties together as an "umbrella" party) came second. The election was also noted for the rise of the far-right party Svoboda, which came in fourth. The new (on the national scene) party UDAR also enjoyed noticeable great success with its third place in the election. The Communist Party of Ukraine almost tripled its numbers of voters but because of the mixed election system used in the election it only won five more seats compared with the previous election. Because of this mixed system three small parties and 43 unaffiliated politicians also made it into parliament.

The new parliament was appointed and started its tasks on 12 December 2012 – six weeks after the elections. This was the last national Ukrainian election Crimea participated in before the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014.

Background

Political crises and canceled 2008 snap elections

On October 8, 2008 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko tried to dissolve the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) and called early parliamentary elections in Ukraine for the second time in as many years for December 7, 2008. The right of the President to dismiss the parliament was challenged in Ukraine's Constitutional Court. The President's decree has since lapsed as it was never put into action (the coalition supporting the second Tymoshenko Government was extended) and appeals to Ukraine's Constitutional Court were withdrawn. Nevertheless, a snap election was predicted by Ukrainian politicians during the 2010 presidential election and after the dismissal of the second Tymoshenko Government.Yuschenko vows to dissolve parliament if his draft of constitution not passed
Interfax-Ukraine (November 23, 2009)Update: Ukraine court rules Yanukovych coalition legal
Kyiv Post (April 8, 2010)Opposition leader promises new parliamentary election in March, if elected
Kyiv Post (December 9, 2009)Yanukovych to call vote if coalition ruled illegal
Kyiv Post (March 1, 2010)Election Commission fails to decide on start of parliamentary election campaign (VIDEO)
Kyiv Post (November 22, 2010)Deputies agree to extend term in office
Kyiv Post (November 19, 2010)Update: Court extends parliament term by a year
Kyiv Post (November 22, 2010) One of the arguments against holding early elections were the costs. Early elections were (in October 2008) estimated to cost approximately UAH₴417 million (about EUR€60 million or US$80 million).

2012 election date set

On February 1, 2011 the Verkhovna Rada set the election date for October 28, 2012. Several deputies whose votes were registered that day have stated they could not have taken part in voting because they were not in Kyiv (where the Verkhovna Rada building is located) on February 1, 2011. Voting by MPs in the place of absent MPs of the Verkhovna Rada is prohibited by law.Янукович отримав контрольний пакет у парламенті
Ukrayinska Pravda (February 2, 2011) On July 27, 2012 the Central Election Commission of Ukraine announced that campaigning for the elections would commence on July 30.

Changes in the voting system

In June 2011 the Venice Commission reviewed a proposed Draft Law on the election of Ukrainian parliamentary members.Draft Law on the election of members of Parliament of Ukraine
, Venice Commission (June 28, 2011) The proposal sought to re-instate a parallel voting system – used in the 1998 and 2002 electionsAgainst All Odds: Aiding Political Parties in Georgia and Ukraine (UvA Proefschriften)
by Max Bader, Vossiuspers UvA, 2010, (page 93) – with the establishment of 225 local single-member districts elected (in one round) by a first-past-the-post electoral system (candidate with the highest vote total wins); and the remaining 225 parliamentary seats being elected nationwide on a proportional party-list system with a 5% support threshold; and excluding political blocs from all elections.People First: The latest in the watch on Ukrainian democracy
Kyiv Post (June 24, 2011) The option "Vote against all" was also made defunct in the proposalExperts: Proposed election law casts cloud over next year's parliamentary contest
Kyiv Post (October 3, 2011) (according to a November 2012 opinion poll by Research & Branding Group (otherwise) 17% of the voters would have voted "against everybody" during the elections). The opposition and Ukrainian analysts accused the Party of Regions of "rewriting the law so that the president could secure a majority in the next Verkhovna Rada." In October 2011 the Venice Commission recommended Ukraine should not return to a mixed election system. Nevertheless, on 17 November 2011 the Ukrainian Parliament approved an election law almost identical to the June 2011 proposed Draft Law.ВР ухвалила закон про вибори народних депутатів
, Interfax Ukraine (17 November 2011) This new law satisfied the major opposition parties Batkivschyna and Front for Change; but was condemned by the core party of Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc, Our Ukraine. Candidates could be elected on party lists or through self-nomination. On 8 December 2011 President Viktor Yanukovych signed the new election law. Since then several parties merged with other parties.

The possibility to be simultaneously be nominated on a nationwide party list and in a single mandate constituency also was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine on 10 April 2012.

Voters could temporarily change their place of voting without changing their permanent voting address.

Issues

Fraud suspicions and accusations

From 2011 to 2013 with liaison to Serhiy Lyovochkin, Alan Friedman, Eckart Sager, who was a one time CNN producer, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, and Manafort's senior aide Konstantin Kilimnik devised a strategy to discredit Yulia Tymoshenko who had been an outspoken critic of pro-Russia, pro-Kremlin, and pro-Putin supporters in Ukraine. Manafort's Global Endeavour Inc., a St. Vincent and Grenadines based consulting and lobbying company, his Lucicle Consultants Ltd., a Cyprus based consulting company, and three other of his companies were hired to provide support to Yanukovich and his Party of Regions. This strategy included: creating a fake think tank in Vienna, the ''Center for the Study of Former Soviet Socialist Republics'' (CXSSR), to support Yanukovich and his Party of Regions; using a social media blitz with Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, and altering the Google's search stack to disseminate articles and videos that undermine opponents of the Party of Regions and Yanukovich in Europe and the United States; rewriting Wikipedia articles to smear Yanukovich opponents especially Tymoshenko; and using Breitbart News, RedState, and an article in ''The Wall Street Journal'' to discredit the Obama State Department and the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Alan Friedman, who had not registered as a foreign agent in the United States, told Kostyantyn Gryshchenko that Friedman, who often wrote using the pen name ''Matthew Lina'', published dozens of positive stories about the Party of Regions and Yanukovich and ensured that these were disseminated to over 2,000 publications and placed at the top of Google search stacks. Known as the Tymoshenko Files, Friedman sent Manafort a highly confidential two page letter detailing Friedman's efforts and that Friedman would claim to be Inna Bohoslovska to ghost pen articles on her behalf. In October 2012 after Hillary Clinton had supported Tymoshenko, Brietbart News released an article calling Hillary Clinton a “neo-Nazi Frankenstein”.

Candidates and analysts predicted that bribery to secure votes would be rampant.Parliamentary elections 2012: Is Ukraine repeating history?
Kyiv Post (27 September 2012) A March 2012 poll by Research & Branding Group showed that 66% of the respondents believed that the election would not be fair, 18% disagreed with that. Following the elections the parties Fatherland, UDAR and Svoboda filled in an appeal at the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CVK) with allegations of fraud in 13 simple-majority constituencies. Irregularities in the elections like cases of ballot stuffing, carousel voting, suspiciously high voter turnout and bribed voters have been reported. On 30 October 2012 the Committee of Voters of Ukraine stated that the elections saw a record number of cases of bribery of voters. They also insisted the elections had not brought the country closer to democratic standards. And that although there were no grounds to believe that the violations that were reported on polling day could affect the election results, the election results could seriously be affected by violations during the counting of votes.Voters Committee: Bribery in parliamentary elections breaks record
Interfax-Ukraine (30 October 2012)

According to Opora the most common violations of the electoral law during the election campaign in August were using government resources for partisan purposes and vote buying. According to Opora the Party of Regions committed the most violations of the electoral law. On 28 October 2012 Party of Regions itself claimed to have documented 607 violations of the election legislation by its opponents. In June 2012 the Committee of Voters of Ukraine declared that the use of government resources for partisan ends would not be decisive in the (then upcoming) elections. According to Taras Kuzio Berkut riot police was used in attempts to destroy ballots.

On 1 November 2012 the Deputy Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CVK), Zhanna Usenko-Chorna, stated that the elections are heavily falsified. She indicated that several electoral districts clearly demonstrate a depravity of the single-constituency district elections in Ukraine and that as of 1 November CVK still had not received results from 14 electoral districts. According to her that was the main reason why CVK could not announce the complete results of the elections on the scheduled time, 31 October 2012.

In mid-February 2012 Bloc Yulia Tymoshenko deputy Roman Zabzalyuk stated that "if the results on Election Day can't be sufficiently fixed" the Party of Regions had already made plans to bribe deputies to join the Party of Regions after their election into the Parliament; representatives of the Party of Regions denied allegations of bribery or plans to fix the election.

Issues at districts

Kyiv and its region

A notably reported scandal took place at the electoral district 215 where initially a win was awarded to the acting chairman of the Kyiv city council Halyna Hereha. After the results were challenged it was decided to recount the votes with about 30 law enforcement personnel to keep public order. Later everything was resolved and cleared that indeed the votes between the two candidates Hereha (independent) and Andriy Illyenko ("Svoboda") were switched around. On November 1, 2012 Halyna Hereha officially complained about the elections, but does not intend to take it to court.

To another electoral district 211 in Kyiv was sent an ambulance as a deputy chairman of the district electoral commission had a nervous breakdown. The commission of the district for three days had a difficult time to count all the votes.

Another big scandal with involvement of the riot law enforcement unit of Berkut took place at the 95th electoral district (a Kyivan suburban city of Irpin). The electoral commission at the district was the slowest and the public involvement surely did not help to speed up the process, however a possible miscounting was prevented. Previously, a possible riot from a big "youth group of athletic posture" was suspected by witnesses.

Another scandal took place at the 223rd district where some fist fighting took place, which was eventually extinguished with the help of law enforcement. Oleh Tyahnybok told Ukrayinska Pravda that "Svoboda" will be picketing "EpiCenter" supermarkets and apartments of the 223rd electoral district commission members. Because of the incident, the Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) conducts a live broadcasting from the headquarters of the district. In protest the district electoral commission refuses to continue its work.

Southern Ukraine

At the 132nd district (Pervomaisk, Mykolaiv Oblast) peasants laid a siege around the building of the district electoral commission in the protest of post-electoral results.

Repeat elections in 5 constituencies

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine adopted a resolution on November 5 recognizing the impossibility of announcing election results in five single-seat constituencies (electoral districts 94, 132, 194, 197 and 223); it also recognized the need to hold repeat elections in these constituencies and asked parliament to take a decision on holding repeat elections in these constituencies. On November 6 the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution that proposed repeat elections. On 8 November the Central Election Commission stated that the Verkhovna Rada should thus make a respective law for this and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine should determine the amount of funding for these elections.

On 29 December 2012, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a query from 54 Verkhovna Rada members concerning procedures for the five repeat elections. As of 21 March 2013 the Constitutional Court has not opened a case on this issue. The current Verkhovna Rada parliamentary majority refused to consider the scheduling of repeated elections in the five constituencies before the court issues its ruling on this issue.CIS-EMO mission says parliamentary elections in Ukraine legally incomplete
Interfax-Ukraine (3 March 2013)

On 5 September 2013 the Verkhovna Rada set the date of (all, see below) 7 re-elections to 15 December 2013.

Repeat elections in 2 more constituencies

In early February 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine member Pavlo Baloha (at the time a member of the Party of Regions parliamentary faction) and independent Oleksandr Dombrovsky.Higher Administrative Court deprives two MPs of deputy seats
Kyiv Post (9 February 2013)
ВИЩИЙ СУД ПОЗБАВИВ МАНДАТІВ ДВОХ ДЕПУТАТІВ ''Superior Court denied MANDATES two deputies''
Ukrayinska Pravda (8 February 2013)
В опозиції ініціюють звільнення суддів ВАСУ ''The opposition initiated dismissal Vasu''
Den (11 February 2013) The Administrative Court established that the results in single-member districts number 11 (Vinnytsia Oblast; Dombrovsky) and number 71 (Zakarpattia Oblast; Baloha) after the 2012 elections had been "unreliable". On 3 July 2013 Baloha's and Dombrovsky's mandates were officially cancelled.Baloha, Dombrovsky no longer MPs
Ukrinform (3 July 2013)

On 5 September 2013 the Verkhovna Rada set the date of (all, see above) 7 re-elections to 15 December 2013.

By-election in constituency 224 (Sevastopol)

On 24 December 2012 President Viktor Yanukovych appointed Pavlo Lebedyev as Defense Minister.By-election to parliament in 224th majority constituency of Sevastopol scheduled for July 7, says CEC
Interfax-Ukraine (18 April 2013) Lebedyev had been elected as a lawmaker in the single-seat constituency No. 224 (in Sevastopol) in the 2012 election (28 October 2012). On 22 March 2013 the Verkhovna Rada cancelled his parliamentary mandate. The by-election for the single-seat constituency No. 224 was held on 7 July 2013 and won by independent Vadim Novinsky with 53.41% with a turnout of 23.91%.Novinsky wins by-election to Rada in Sevastopol, according to CEC
Interfax-Ukraine (8 July 2013) Before the election Novinsky had stated he would join the Party of Regions if he won.

Repeat elections in constituency 133 (Odessa)

On 12 September 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine (under a lawsuit lodged by Yuriy Karmazin) ruled it impossible to reliably establish the results of 28 October 2012 elections in single-mandate constituency No. 133 (in Odessa), at the time Ihor Markov had been declared winner of that constituency. The court overturned the Central Election Commission (CEC) decision of 23 November 2012 regarding Markov's registration as a People's Deputy of Ukraine and ordered the CEC to take measures to organize, prepare for and hold repeat elections in constituency No. 133.Court strips MP Ihor Markov of his mandate
Interfax-Ukraine (12 September 2013)

Police officers had documented the use of pens with disappearing ink in at least 40 polling stations in constituency No. 133 on 28 October 2012.

Repeat elections in five constituencies of 15 December 2013

The Central Election Commission of Ukraine finalized the vote count on 12 November 2012 but simultaneously ordered – on recommendation of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) – repeat elections in five troubled single-mandate constituencies where it could not establish results.Party of Regions gets 185 seats in Ukrainian parliament, Batkivschyna 101 - CEC
Interfax-Ukraine (12 November 2012) Because of occurrences in these five constituencies.Repeat elections in troubled constituencies unlikely to be held before March 2013, says CEC deputy head
Interfax-Ukraine (7 November 2012) In February 2013 the Higher Administrative Court of Ukraine