Five more deputies are elected (12/31/95)

Five more deputies are elected

by Marta Kolomayets
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Five more deputies were elected in the latest round of parliamentary elections held on December 24, bringing the total number of lawmakers who will register for the fifth session of the Supreme Council when it convenes after the Christmas holidays on January 16 to 418.

Two Communists, two independent candidates and one member of the Rukh Party were elected in run-offs. Elections were invalidated in four districts, where voter turnout was below 50 percent.

Thirty-one seats will remain vacant until April 7, the next date set by the Central Electoral Commission for by-elections, reported Chairman Ivan Yemets.

Among those elected on December 24 were Ihor Sharov, a member of the Communist Party, elected in the autonomous republic of the Crimea. He is a 34-year-old businessman and chairman of the stock company Intergas.

The other Communist Party member who won in these run-offs was Anatoliy Drobotov, 44, also from the Crimea, who is the head of the Lenin collective farm on the peninsula.

Two lawmakers were elected in the city of Kyiv, including a member of the Rukh party, Yaroslav Fedoryn, 40, the general director of Heopromresursy, an investment company in the capital city.

The other was Anatoliy Kovalenko, who ran as an independent candidate. Mr. Kovalenko, 40, is an engineer by profession and heads the Pecherske District Council of Deputies.

The last of the candidates to be elected in the run-offs was Serhiy Buryak, 29, the chairman of the Brokbiznesbank, who ran as an independent in the Irpin district of Kyiv Oblast.

Elections to the current Parliament were first held in March of 1994, but voter apathy and a tough election law, which requires 50 percent voter turnout and a candidate to receive 50 percent of the vote in order to make the elections valid, have delayed completing the 450-seat Parliament for over two years now.

According to Hariacha Linia (Hot Line), a Ukrainian news agency that reports on election results and violations, of the 14 deputies elected this December, seven are businessmen, five are representatives of the government, including Prime Minister Yevhen Marchuk and former Crimean Prime Minister Anatoliy Franchuk, and one is a collective farm director. Of the 14 new deputies, five are members of political parties: one from Rukh, four from the Communist Party.

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