Yushchenko signed bill favoring Regions because Yanukovych is lesser evil to him than Tymoshenko

February04201018:33

Pres Yushchenko signed the bill changing presidential election procedures because it is no secret that a Yanukovych win is lesser evil to Yushchenko than the victory of Tymoshenko, Mykhailo Pohrebinsky told ZIK Feb. 4. The new law gives the Regions the confidence that BYT won’t disrupt the work of electoral commissions in the East of Ukraine, the expert says.
“No one knows all the implications the new law may have. The law is an attempt to ensure the Regions just in case,” the expert says.
That BYT will recall its members from electoral commissions to disrupt the vote is unlikely, the expert opines as there will be observers. However, the Regions remember their sad experience in 2004 when the victory, they say, was stolen from them. Therefore, they are doing everything to forestall any problems, Pohrebinsky notes.
Meanwhile, BYT interprets the new law as giving an opportunity to their rivals to exclude BYT members of electoral commission from their work, especially in Eastern Ukraine, says the expert.
The election is feared by both contenders, Pohrebinsky sums up.
Comment by ZIK
Feb. 3, Verkhovna Rada passed changes to the presidential electoral law, cancelling quorum requirements for local electoral commissions. If any of the candidate fails to submit his representative to a electoral commission or withdraws him ahead of the vote, new commission members for district commissions are to be appointed by oblast councils of deputies and for local commission by city mayors or rayon heads.
If electoral commissions violate the electoral law, their authority is transferred to a higher rank commissions, the law says.
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