20:07 05.08.2020

Authorities are preparing to use administrative resources in elections – CVU

3 min read

KYIV. Aug 5 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The President's Office and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine are preparing to use administrative resources until the results of the Servant of the People party improve in local elections, Chairman of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) Oleksiy Koshel said.

"We are observing individual facts that can be characterized as preparation for the use or use of the administrative resource in the elections," Koshel said at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday.

According to him, over the past few years, the Committee of Voters of Ukraine has not observed any attempts to use the administrative resource on the part of the authorities however the events of June and July indicate that this method is likely to be used in the next local elections.

The committee selected five examples that, in its opinion, indicate the future use of political corruption to improve the results of the party in power in the elections.

"During a speech at a meeting of the Servant of the People faction on organizing primaries for the post of Kyiv mayor, which took place with the participation of the president of Ukraine, MP Oleksandr Dubinsky said that he had discussed criminal cases against Vitali Klitschko with the head of state. We warn that the discussion of the MP with the president of possible pre-election criminal cases is the story that has all the signs of an administrative resource or political corruption," the committee's chairman said.

Koshel also said that President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a briefing on July 16 that candidates from the Servant of the People in local elections would be checked by the Security Service and other law enforcement agencies: "I want to emphasize that there is a law on the Security Service of Ukraine, where in no way provides for the possibility of verifying either individuals or candidates for elections."

As the third example, the Committee of Voters cited the words of Head of Zakarpattia Regional State Administration Oleksiy Petrov, who said that he would be involved in the party's headquarters, "conduct some kind of 'shifting' of people who can be toxic, have some kind of negative background that would prevent the formation of a normal party rating." Koshel calls such actions of Petrov unacceptable.

The fourth example of the possible use of the administrative resource in the local elections by the authorities in the interests of the Servant of the People party, the Committee of Voters calls the statement of First Deputy Chairman of the Servant of the People faction Oleksandr Korniyenko that Deputy Head of the President's Office Serhiy Trofimov and the team of Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov were involved in the selection of candidates for mayor from the party.

The committee said that PM of the Servant of the People faction Oleksandr Kachura said that the employees of the President's Office were counting votes in the internal party primaries.

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