Election Detector. Shot of Russian Vaccine. The main trends in the information space during October 5–11, 2020

Українську версію читайте тут.

The Opposition Platform – For Life party’s media passionately cover Medvedchuk’s trip to the Kremlin, “People’s Servants” apologize for another blunder on the air, and Channel Ukraine insults a widow in the interests of Liashko. Election Detector 2.7.

The main trends

Without coverage opportunities from the Verkhovna Rada, the news had less mentioning of political forces that do not have their own media resources or strong agreements with the oligarchs. The exception was made by the Proposition party – Borys Filatov’s party appeared in the news of various channels in neutral, positive and scandalous contexts. The Opposition Platform – For Life party focused on the PR around Viktor Medvedchuk’s trip to the Kremlin for pseudo-talks, using the Russian coronavirus vaccine as one of the PR topics. Another trouble maker from the People’s Servants party Oleksandr Kachura got fried on the vaccine. He said on Medvedchuk’s channel that Ukraine should buy the Russian drug in spite of everything.

Although Medvedchuk went to Moscow to promote himself, the European Solidarity media criticized Zelenskyi for this. They exerted powers to compensate for Zelenskyi’s relative success in the UK  by reporting on the failure of the EU-Ukraine summit and proving that the threat of losing visa-free travel is serious indeed.

Channel Ukraine has exceeded the limits of decency for the sake of PR of parliamentary candidate Oleh Liashko, having broadcast black PR against one of his competitors – the widow of the people’s deputy Valeriy Davydenko. Not only was she accused of organizing a voter bribery network, citing anonymous sources, but she was also quite transparently hinted saying that the widow was “sorry to tears” for the lost electoral district.

Inter again used manipulative pseudo-ratings produced by the agency which is a smoke screen company for Serhiy Lyovochkin’s institute, and supplemented them with a comment from the director of the same institute. But the results of a real survey by the authoritative Rating sociological company were of interest only to a small part of the central television channels.

The most important events related to the election, which were covered in the media in the period from October 5 to October 11, 2020

Police in Luhansk region uncovered voter bribery;

Volodymyr Zelenskyi assured that there would be no elections in the occupied territories this year;

President Zelenskyi wants to move out from the state-owned estate in Koncha Zaspa;

“People’s Servant” Oleksandr Kachura offers to buy a Russian vaccine against coronavirus;

The CEC accredited 78 official foreign observers for local elections;

The European Solidarity party claimed, that its candidates in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are being persecuted by the SBU;

Searches are being conducted in the Odessa offices of the Opposition Platform – For Life party;

Viktor Medvedchuk met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and was vaccinated against the coronavirus;

The president says that the visa-free travel with the EU is safe;

As part of the bihus.info experiment, “people’s servants” could not distinguish  their program from Putin’s;

Volodymyr Zelenskyi visited the UK and signed an agreement;

The European Solidarity party candidate Volodymyr Balukh came out of a coma;

New survey conducted by the Rating company was made public.

The court denied the mayor of Cherkasy a lawsuit against Volodymyr Zelenskyi;

The CEC announced that elections to district councils would be held throughout the free territory of Donbas;

Yulia Tymoshenko proposes to create National Coronavirus Epidemic Center;

The European Solidarity party won the court in Kremenchuk, but was still not allowed to run in the election;

The European Solidarity party demands an investigation into the costs of the coronavirus fund;

Skhemy [Schemes] told about a secret meeting presidential aide Serhiy Shefir with Rinat Akhmetov;

The Voice party will bring Andriy Sharaskin to the Verkhovna Rada to the position vacated by Sviatoslav Vakarchuk – Alina Sviderska “could not make it”;

The CEC explained, how to fill in the ballot in the local elections;

Geo Leros published a new portion of damaging material on Mykola Tyshchenko;

The state of Petro Poroshenko’s – who has coronavirus disease – deteriorated. But on October 11 he got better – and on October 12 the politician was discharged from the hospital.

The Supreme Court ruled that Volodymyr Zelenskyi is obliged to speak only Ukrainian in the exercise of his powers;

In the United States, Petro Poroshenko’s companies are being investigated — the European Solidarity party says he has no offshore companies;

The CEC warned that masks would have to be removed at polling stations.

How to go to the polling station and not bring the coronavirus from there? In a country where more than 5,000 people are diagnosed with coronavirus every day, it should be seriously though about and talked about. But in practice, except for regular manipulations on the topic “will the government cancel the election?” and isolated soundbites by the Minister of Health, there is very little media coverage of election safety. Similarly needed are explanations of the electoral system, which Teksty aptly called a “difficult toy.” At least some coverage opportunities for the election materials appeared in the news of ICTV, Inter and STB this week thanks to the Opora press conference, where they talked about violations and explained how to vote. STB produced materials on the candidate “cloning” technology, distribution of masks and other methods of bribery.

Inter does not stop manipulating using the ratings of the so-called “Ukrainian sociological group”. In our previous review, we clarified that this is just a smoke screen for Serhiy Lyovochkin’s Nova Ukraina Institute. The agency affiliated with the Opposition Platform – for Life party predictably adjusts favorable ratings for the party – this time in the Odesa region: “Candidates from the Opposition Platform – For Life party have the best chances to get into the regional council.” The manipulation is that the figures given in the message do not mean “chances to get into the regional council”, but the percentage of voters who are allegedly ready to vote for the party. And so that you do not have any doubts, in addition to the ratings of the Ukrainian Sociological Group, a comment by the director of the Nova Ukraina Institute, which belongs to one of the leaders of the Opposition Platform – For Life party was included in the story. Bingo! 🙂 A similar material appeared in Inter‘s news about the Kherson region, where, of course, Lyovochkin’s sociologists stated the leadership of the Opposition Platform – For Life party in elections to local councils.

But the results of the poll by the Rating company on support of the parties were not interesting to Inter this time, however, the channel said that “55 percent of citizens do not know at all how to elect the local government.” It is possible, that the PR-workers of the Opposition Platform – For Life party did not like the fact that this party and the European Solidarity party are divided only by a half percentage point in the recent results by the Rating. Instead, these results were reported in the news by Channel 5 and 1+1 (the latter did it with an emphasis on the fact that one in four does not know about the election).

The closer to the election, the more noticeable in the information space is the imparity of political forces that have their own television channels or media holdings and those that have to buy seats in studios and on air or to hope to be mentioned for free. Without coverage opportunities from the Verkhovna Rada, the mention of the Fatherland and the Voice parties or even the People’s Servant party was critically reduced. Often the lack of mention looks like a boycott: for example, you will not hear in the news of the central television channels about the Shariy’s Party, although its leader Anatoliy Shariy is regularly shown on Medvedchuk’s channels. The party’s cells are desperately trying to attract attention with the “Shariy in the City” campaign, but even the mysterious mass cancellation of the registration of Shariy’s Party candidates is covered only by the Public Broadcaster. But Palchevsky’s Victory party, despite its leader’s round-the-clock access to Medvedchuk’s channels, was caught using a bot farm and spending tens of thousands of dollars to spread pseudo-ratings.