Odesa City Council Faces Non-Personal Voting Scandal Again

Today, on November 29, analysts of the campaign "Certification of Local Council Deputies" recorded the fact of non-personal voting by members of the Odesa City Council.

During the XXV session of the Odesa City Council of the VIII convocation , Tetiana Plaksii, a representative of the "Trust the Deeds" faction, repeatedly voted for her faction colleague Iryna Kutsenko.

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Video: Viktoriia Sobko, analyst of the campaign "Certification of Local Council Deputies"

This is not the first time that deputies of this cadence have voted not personally. For example, on February 8, 2023, Oksana Antonishak, a representative of the "Trust the Deeds" faction, repeatedly voted for her faction colleague Vasyl Ieremia. Interestingly, even the MPs themselves raised the issue of "button-pressing" that time.

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In February, journalists from the Center for Public Investigations once again recorded the fact of non-personal voting by members of the Odesa City Council.

Then, a representative of the "Trust the Deeds" faction, Oksana Antonishak, repeatedly voted for her faction colleague Vasyl Ieremia.

The journalists noted that many decisions were not adopted at the session due to the lack of votes in the "Trust the Deeds" faction, and the deputy corps returned to many issues repeatedly.

In response to the deputies' remarks, the mayor said that he was unable to influence the button pushers.

Also in 2021, there were cases when deputies Iryna Kutsenko and Tetiana Plaksiy voted for each other.

The Standing Committee on Regulations, Deputy Ethics, Implementation of State Regulatory Policy and Prevention of Corruption of the Odesa City Council even decided to recommend that MP Iryna Kutsenko ("Trust the Deeds") take appropriate measures to prevent cases of non-personal voting (button-pressing) on her part.

The head of the commission , Olha Kvasnytska, raised the issue of "button-pressing " at a meeting of the commission on June 23, stating that the IzbirKom media outlet (now called Intent- ed.) had posted a video of non-personal voting on its Facebook page on March 17. It showed MP Iryna Kutsenko, a member of the "Trust the Deeds" party, voting for herself and for another MP , Tetiana Plaksiy, who had left the session hall.

Olha Kvasnytska noted that this was a violation of paragraph 12 of Article 7 of the Odesa City Council's regulations.

Кирило Бойко