Elections to local self-government bodies will be held in a few days - on October 25. The pre-election race has almost come to an end, which means that some conclusions can already be drawn. The editors of "ElitExpert" turned to political scientist, the head of the Odesa organization "Committee of Voters of Ukraine" Anatoly Boyko, who told how the current election campaign is going.
— One of the most "hot" topics today is the situation with the Odesa Central Committee, which sometimes refused to register candidates and parties, and then, on the contrary, did so, but it was already clearly illegal - after all the deadlines set by the legislation had passed... Now the CEC has formed a new Odessa Technical Committee, but it is reported that the old members of the commission remained in it. Is that what is happening there now?
— Indeed, reformatting of the commission took place. We did not analyze the composition in detail, but two people - Chernyshev and Kartashova - remained from the previous composition. However, they did not take part in illegal decisions, so their parties had the right to re-apply for them.
— When Dmitry Golubov was not registered the first time, was the TIC right, or did someone influence the commission's decision?
— If he is talking about the first time, then he was not initially registered for two reasons. The first is a violation of the deposit procedure, and there was indeed a specified violation. The second reason is non-compliance with the deadlines for submitting documents. The TIC claimed that he was late with the submission of documents, but Golubov reported that he did everything on time. It's hard to say how it actually was, because everything happened at night and our observer was not there. Accordingly, we cannot confirm or deny the information of each of the parties.
Subsequently, two courts refused to register Golubova for the mayoral elections. However, TIK, in violation of the law and after the expiration of all terms, without any reason, registered it, thus radically changed its own point of view on this issue. Because of this, the Central Election Committee of Ukraine dissolved the Odesa TIK and, in our opinion, quite legitimately.
— This time, Ukrainians are waiting for innovations in the elections. In particular, on October 25, the citizens of Odessa will also elect deputies of the new district - Odessa, which was created in the summer, on the basis of the Ovidyopolsky, Lymansky and Belyaevsky districts. Will it affect the political situation in the region?
— Elections to the district council have the least influence on the political situation, because it is not yet clear what this body will do and what powers it will have. The key influence on the political situation will be the mayor's election, and then the results of the city and regional council elections. Now it is difficult to predict anything.
- In these elections, it was possible to change the place of voting. Are abuses recorded in this area?
— There are a number of scandals related to this topic. Traditionally, it is Zatoka, village. Tairovo and Fontanka. There, during July-August, an abnormally large number of people changed their place of voting from their place of residence to these settlements. Even the Central Election Commission turned to the police so that the law enforcement officers could check whether these people really live in these settlements or whether this is a scheme of so-called "electoral tourism". This is when a fictitious change of polling place occurs so that people vote for the "necessary" candidate for material compensation.
An investigation is underway now. From our side, I can comment that this really looks like a criminal scheme aimed at manipulating the election results. But for now, unfortunately, the police do not provide any details, except that an investigation is being conducted and they are trying to find out about the organizers and oppose this scheme.
— That is, such machinations became possible thanks to the new Electoral Code?
- And yes, and no. Technically, yes, if he is talking specifically about this machination. And in general, various kinds of schemes are possible, since in principle our culture, or rather lack of culture, allows people to do this. Without this norm, something else would have been falsified. Unfortunately, this is considered acceptable, since so far no one has been punished for such things.
— What technologies do the headquarters use in the fight for voters?
— I cannot say that this campaign is distinguished by creativity and some super-new technologies. What we see is mostly standard and uncreative.
— Thus, it cannot be said that this campaign has changed for the better, if compared with the previous ones?
— I wouldn't say that she is brighter, that's definitely not the case.
— By the way, how much will the new Electoral Code affect the election results?
— The Code, of course, dramatically affects the elections, because we have a completely new system of elections to the councils of those settlements where more than 10 voters live. This changes everything, including the methods of conducting the campaign, but whether it will be a positive or negative influence, we will be able to assess only by the results of the elections. The fact that the ballot is more complicated for voters is yes, but I would not exaggerate its complexity. Members of the election commission will have much more difficulties in the process of counting votes, as much more effort will be required and it will take more time. But again, while we are talking about preliminary forecasts.
— Indeed, many experts note that the current ballots are too complicated.
- Well, actually everything is intuitively clear there. The difficulty lies in the fact that before we put only one tick for a party or a candidate, now, first of all, we can put a tick both for a party and separately for a candidate of this party. Thus, we can specifically influence who exactly from the party will enter this or that council. That is, the voter's influence can potentially increase. Secondly, there are different types of these marks. For the party, we simply put a checkmark, and for the candidate, we need to enter the ego number. But in my opinion, it is quite understandable.
— How do you feel about the All-Ukrainian poll, which was organized by Zelensky, and why is it actually necessary?
- I have a negative attitude towards him. Because, in my opinion, this is exclusively pre-election manipulation, the task of which is to consolidate the electorate and mobilize it for the elections. That is, the logic is simple: "if the ratings are not pleasing, there is a fear that the voter will not come, and that Zelensky's simple appeal "Let's do it together" is no longer enough, then we will try to change the concepts. Let us call for elections not to support ourselves, but to find out the opinion of the people.
In any other case, there is no point in conducting this survey on October 25 in this format. If it is really important for the president to find out the opinion of the public on some key positions, then for this you need a professional study, and not such a survey, because it is not clear who will conduct it, how it will be considered, what guarantees that it will be considered at all. I'm not talking about the issues that have been raised. Such questions are a frivolous initiative, not at the level of the president, this is some kind of mockery of common sense. In addition, the results will not have any influence, which means that the survey itself, from the point of view of obtaining information, is not needed by anyone. It is only necessary that people come to the polling stations.
