Ukrainian elections: silent protest

The dirtiest election in the history of our country came to an end. The Central Election Commission still counts the results. The official data will be announced later, but the preliminary results of the voting are evident. In my opinion, the main result of the election was an unprecedented low turnout. It is obvious that at least some 60% of Odessa-city residents didn’t came to vote - as it turned out – they didn’t forget the masscare of May 2nd.

The turnout in the Donbass territories still controlled by the Kiev government  is too extremely low that it may seem a humiliation of the central government. And it is even given the "separatist" counting methods of the Ukrainian authorities (which do not take into account the non-voting in Donetsk and Luhansk, and thus, de facto recognizes the existence of independent Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics). So, in Mariupol (town in Donetsk region under control of Kiev troops) – only some 30% voters came to polling stations. The general map of the electoral turnout impressively indicated that South-East of the country de facto ignored "the election of a united country."

The result of Poroshenko’s party can be considered a defeat that followed his personal failure in our civil war. A.Yatsenyuk, who collected a significant amount of votes, due to the skillfully used administrative resource, will demand the position of the prime minister, blackmailing the president by the opportunity (albeit, hypothetical) to block the work of the Parliament with the help of parties "Fatherland", "Samopomich" and, possibly, "Opposition block."

Kiev-city which actually has voted for the oligarch I.Kolomoiskiy ... that is, for the "Samopomіch" party, confirmed its political reputation of the ‘Doomed City’. Although, we couldn’t expect another result from the city massively indoctrinated by nationalist propaganda, which elected before as mayors such strange figures as V.Klitschko and A.Chernovetsky.

Some analysts predicted failure to the far-right "Svoboda" party, but, nevertheless, it passes into the Parliament with some radical right-wing politicians like Andrew Illenko and Yuri Levchenko elected in the Ukrainian capital. After all, the far-right nationalist electorate is still here. Moreover, it has grown considerably, and expanded while voting for several rightwing parties. Have not gone away, of course, the traditional supporters of the Left, but they, unlike the leadership of the Communist Party, have no parliamentary illusions.

Millions of people have realized that their participation in the elections is absolutely useless, because the very elections are organized in such a way so that deliberately to deprive them of any representation and ignore their position. Sneaky businessmen don’t suit to the role of opposition politicians, and if an opportunity to express their opinions in Parliament will appear – it will be allowed in a strict framework, otherwise they will be subjected either to pogroms, as it happened with the Communist party offices, or to criminal prosecution (like still loyal to the government entrepreneur Oksana Kalyetnik, recently accused in advocating separatism).

The Radical Party of O. Lyashko received significantly fewer votes than expected, which was a result of his conflict with oligarch and governor I.Kolomoiskiy who set against the Radical Party all his media resources. However, the fact that the nationalist party of a far-right showman will be in Parliament, indicates the level of sentiments and political culture of a significant number of patriotic voters who are partly shifted their loyalty from O.Tyahnybok’s “Svoboda” party to “Radical Party” of O.Lyashko.

The future MP Sergei Melnychuk, the commander of the battalion "Aidar", an armed gang which is accused by Western human rights activists in war crimes and robberies, said that the first thing he would do in parliament – he will beat Semen Semenchenko the commander of the battalion "Donbass". This is, for sure, just one example and bravado - since the actual sponsors of various nationalist parties, of course, will force the elected crooks, thieves and murderers to actively cooperate with each other for the sponsor’s benefit. But the words of Melnychuk quite clearly show the general level of these politicians from the new Parliament – actually illegitimate - de facto quasi-parliament - elected by the ultra-right and neo-liberal minority so that to impose their regime on the whole society.

Boycotting the elections, the half of the country's population actually responds to the political and military violence.

Sergei Kirichuk

Liva

Translation: Dmitriy Kolesnik