Odessa opposition does not believe in promises of the power to liquidate drawbacks

On 3 November a press conference of Volodymir Lemza, the manager of the executive committee of the Odessa city council, was held in Odessa. The press conference was devoted to the first tour of presidential election and the drawbacks revealed during it. The power assured that the second tour would be more perfect. Opposition does not believe in this.

One of the most significant drawbacks, which were revealed in Ukraine, in particular in Odessa, during the conduction of the presidential election, was the existence of voters that had not been included into the lists, stated V. Lemza at the press conference. The Odessa voters came across such problems rather frequently.

It became known to journalists that the special commission had been created in Odessa, which would clear up the reasons of disappearance of some voters from the lists.

By the words of Volodymir Lemza, one of the reasons of the mentioned problems was the improper fulfillment of their duties by the workers of dwelling-communal services, passport clerks and the officials, who had to control this work.

In several days the heads of district state administrations will organize the visits to voters with the aim to make the lists for the second tour of the election more exact and deliver the invitations to election stations. The district and city power will apologize to the citizens, who could not realize their constitutional right to give their votes for one of the candidates during the first tour because of their absence in the lists of voters.

By the information of the press service of the city council, such problems almost did not arise before, since the absent names were inscribed in the lists on the day of voting. Now, in the connection with modification of the law, this procedure has been complicated. Surname of a voter may not be entered to the list at an election station – this may be done only after corresponding decision of territorial election commission or court.

At the same time, Odessa mayor Ruslan Bodelian has already signed the order about the creation of the commission for check of the facts of non-inclusion of citizens to the lists for voting.

According to this order, the information must be rendered to the mayor about the check of the facts of violations committed by executive organs of the Odessa city council during the preparation to the election of the President of Ukraine, as well as the propositions about bringing to responsibility of the authorities guilty of these violations.

However, the Odessa headquarters of Viktor Yushchenko does not believe in sincerity of the city power. Representative of the headquarters Andriy Ishchenko is sure that «the city power is interested in the drawbacks connected with the lists of voters, because this makes possible falsification of the results of the election. The power is not able to solve these problems».

MP of Ukraine Yuri Karmazin reckons that falsifications of the enormous scale took place during the first tour of the presidential election in Odessa.

Yuri Karmazin: «In circuit 137, at election station 80, which includes the Juridical Academy and which is headed by Sergiy Kivalov, the head of the CEC, who had given buses for the meeting with Yanukovich and who had sent his students to this meeting, even there 600 voters out of 1200 were in the additional lists. So, what can be said about the agreement and verification of the lists?… No new houses have been built on the territory of this circuit. I know every house there. Similar situation was observed everywhere in Odessa».

The city power took part in the falsifications. First of all, the activists of the Party of regions and city administrations proposed the so-called «technical candidates» to the election commissions. They were the persons, who had figured in the case connected with investigation of the criminal case on falsification of the parliamentary election-2002 and the election of Odessa mayor.

We disclosed the facts, when the members of election stations got 400 hryvnias for provision of the needed results. MP Yu. Karmazin, the leader of the party of defenders of Motherland, believes: «The mayor must apologize to the Odessa dwellers for such humiliation of the members of election commissions, who worked in unadapted rooms. In particular, there were no windows in some rooms, where about 50 observers stayed during the whole day. This caused discontent of the people. I say nothing about the so-called «closed» stations, where noticeable falsifications were revealed».

3 November 2004