Ukraine's Elections Thus Far, My 2 Cents Worth

Hryts Kolodnytskyj in the Tymoshenko HQ in Pidhajtsi

Again I don't have all that much to add to what is being said in the Ukrainian blogosphere about the elections in general, so check out the links for more of the details, such as vote counts, etc.

Things went off smoothly, though it seems like it was a really, really busy day at voting centers all over Ukraine.

I talked with Oksana in Pidhajtsi, where she has been working at an election center (that's her father above).

She said that she expected to be up until all hours of the night counting votes. She talked about the huge number of parties running in the elections, about some old people having a difficult time with the 5 (or was it 4? I forget. . .) bulletins with the zillions of little partylettes to choose from, and she mentioned the incredible turnout of voters. She said that some official had said that voter turnout in Pidhajsti may be as high or even higher than it was during the presidential elections.

That would be something, since the town and county of Pidhajsti had the highest voter turnout (and the highest percentage of votes for Yushchenko) in Ukraine during the whole 2004 presidential election debacle.

I will be very interested to learn, then, how this most fiercely pro-Orange and patriotic of towns voted in these parliamentary elections.

I envision that it will split with nearly equal groups for Yushchenko and Tymoshenko (though I am guessing that Tymoshenko will take the most votes), and that there will be some votes for Pora-PRP, and some for the Party of Regions.