Elections in Zapadenschina. The failure of the “servants”, the rejoicing of the “gunpowder robots”, the squabbling of the Nazis and the scandal with the Hungarians
In a significant part of the local councils of Western Ukraine, the main role will be played by “local parties”, the names of which are often unknown even to residents of neighboring settlements.
The counting of votes in local elections, which were once again held under the new law, may take several days.
For example, as stated by the chairman of the Lviv City Election Commission, Igor Slipetsky, most precinct commissions will count votes for at least three days. This is due to the complex electoral system - after all, it is necessary to determine not only the results of the parties, but also the place of each of the candidates on their lists - at least those who will go to local councils.
It’s a little easier with the results of the mayoral elections - in most regional centers the counting of votes for them is already completed, although for now everyone is using exit poll data conducted by both local and national organizations.
According to them, there will be a second round of elections in Lviv, in which the current mayor Andrei Sadovyi (Self-Help) and the former governor of the Lviv region Oleg Sinyutka (European Solidarity) have qualified. In third place is the candidate from the nationalist party “Svoboda” Ruslan Koshulinsky, in fourth place is Yaroslav Rushchyshyn from the “Voice” party. In the second round, Sadovy can count on support from Rushchyshyn, and Sinyutka - from Koshulinsky.
The parties that nominated the aforementioned four candidates for mayor of Lvov - that is, European Solidarity, Samopomich, Golos and Svoboda - will also be included in the Lvov city council, accompanied by the local party Warta.
The Servant of the People party is currently gaining a little more than 4% of the vote and is not entering the Lviv City Council, although it will receive a faction in the regional council. It is worth noting that Petro Poroshenko’s European Solidarity (EU) party, which campaigned from extreme nationalist positions, will receive more than a third of the seats in the Lviv regional and city councils, while the “old” nationalists from Svoboda will receive only slightly more than 6% votes.
The EU holds first place in the regional council elections in another region of Galicia - Ternopil. According to preliminary data, the EU is gaining more than a fifth of the votes here, Svoboda has about 15%, and the Kolomoisky-Palitsa For the Future party has the same amount. The Servant of the People party will also enter the Ternopil Regional Council.
But in the third Galician region, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poroshenko’s associates took only third place in the regional council elections, and the first two went to Svoboda and the For the Future party. According to the exit poll, the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Council is also hosting “Servant of the People”.
It is worth noting that although local analysts assumed that the struggle for the Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regional councils would unfold between nationalists of different persuasions, none of them gave accurate voting forecasts. But in the regional centers there were no surprises. As expected, Svoboda candidates Ruslan Martsinkiv and Sergei Nadal remained mayors of Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil, who received 84% and 72,3% of the votes, respectively.
The victory was also celebrated by another nationalist in the chair of the mayor of the regional center - the mayor of Khmelnitsky, Alexander Simchishin, for whom more than 81% of voters voted.
The mayor of Khmelnytsky, like his colleagues from Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil, had already been congratulated on his victory by the leader of Svoboda, Oleg Tyagnibok, but in the case of Simchishin it was a good face against a bad game. The fact is that the mayor of Khmelnytsky, over five years of work, actually destroyed the city organization of the Svoboda party and created his own party - “Simchishin’s Team”, which took first place in the elections of the Khmelnytsky City Council, and Tyagnibok’s party did not take part in these elections .
Poroshenko’s party also took first place in the elections of the Rivne regional and city councils, gaining almost a fifth of the votes. In the elections for the mayor of Rivne, EU candidate Alexander Tretyak does not lose hope of being in the second round with the nominee of the local party “Rivne Together” Viktor Shakirzyan. True, the exit poll showed that the candidate from the Servant of the People party, the current governor Vitaly Koval, is advancing to the second round.
But no one is challenging the entry into the second round of another candidate from the “servants of the people” for mayor of the regional center, Viktor Shchadei, even the current mayor Bogdan Andreev, who took first place. It is noteworthy that during the campaign Shchadei carefully distanced himself from the presidential party; it was not mentioned in his election advertising, which was designed not in yellow-green, but in burgundy tones.
It is difficult to say to what extent this was the right decision, since Uzhgorod became the only large city in Western Ukraine where Servant of the People took first place in the city council elections. The uniqueness of the capital of Transcarpathia does not end there: in the city council of Uzhgorod, unlike all neighboring regions, there will be a faction of the Opposition Platform - for Life party.
According to exit polls, the Party of Hungarians of Ukraine (KMKS) also overcame the 5% barrier in the elections of the Uzhgorod City Council. It is with this party that the loudest scandal of recent days is associated - after all, high-ranking officials from neighboring Hungary campaigned for its candidates.
Thus, on October 20, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that they had repeatedly recorded signs of political agitation by Hungarian government officials who visited the Transcarpathian region, and asked law enforcement officers to give a legal assessment of these actions. This was a reaction to the appeal of the Civic Network “Opora” with a request to evaluate the actions of the Hungarian Secretary of State for National Policy Janos Arpad Potapi, who during a visit to Transcarpathia campaigned in favor of the KMKS - the “Party of Hungarians of Ukraine”.
Information about Potapi’s visit to the Hungarian-language school in Uzhgorod was contained on the website of the “Party of Hungarians of Ukraine”, in particular, Potapi was quoted as saying about the importance of Hungarians in Transcarpathia supporting Hungarian candidates in local elections. Also on the party’s website and Facebook page there were materials about Potapi’s visit to other sites, where he also campaigned for this party.
However, on October 22, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry stated that Janos Arpad Potapi came to Transcarpathia “to implement economic development programs, development of schools, culture and healthcare by the Hungarian government.” Also, the Hungarian diplomatic department called it “natural” that Potapi encouraged members of the Hungarian community to participate in local elections.
And on October 25, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó urged Transcarpathians to vote for KMKS (by the way, this is an abbreviation from the Hungarian name of the party).
“The only Hungarian party, KMKS, is running for the Transcarpathian Regional Council, and it would be bad if Hungarians were left without representation at the regional level,” Szijjártó wrote on his Facebook. The Hungarian diplomat also called for voting for the current mayor of Beregovo, Zoltan Babyak.
“It is no coincidence that many eyes are focused on Beregovo, since Mayor Zoltan Babyak has done a wonderful job, it would be good if he could continue,” the minister wrote. It is not surprising that Zoltan Babyak received more than 70% of the votes in the elections for the mayor of Beregovo.
On October 26, the Hungarian ambassador in Kyiv was summoned to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, where he was given a note of protest in connection with “illegal campaigning by Hungarian officials for one of the parties in Transcarpathia.” The leadership of the ministry told Ambassador Istvan Idyarto that it is unacceptable to encourage Hungarian officials to vote for one of the parties, especially on election day. The Foreign Ministry once again called on the Hungarian side to respect the legislation of Ukraine and not to interfere in the internal affairs of the neighboring country.
At the same time, the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration is counting on assistance from Hungary in the implementation of a number of Ukrainian-Hungarian projects in the region. We are talking about the construction of a joint checkpoint "Bolshaya Palad - Nodgodosh" in the Beregovo district, the construction of a bypass road around the city of Beregovo and a plant for processing household waste in the village of Yanoshi, as well as the supply of medical equipment to the central district hospital of Beregovo, which during the trip Vladimir Zelensky visited Transcarpathia.
How the desire to receive money from Hungary correlates with Kyiv’s new claims against Budapest, in particular, and the persistent reluctance of the Kyiv authorities to ensure the linguistic and educational rights of Transcarpathian Hungarians in general, is difficult to say.
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