KIEV, June 3 – Opposition candidates may have suffered a major defeat at local mayoral elections on Sunday, with early data indicating the ruling Regions Party has secured key victories.

The data, provided by the Committee of Ukrainian Voters, an election watchdog, follows the group's earlier claims of possibly massive election fraud in Yalta.

Serhiy Illiash, a member of the Regions Party, is expected to win the mayoral vote in Yalta with 66.9% of the vote, followed by independent Oleksiy Yakovenko’s 11%, according to the committee.

Volodymyr Sabodash, a member of the Regions Party, is expected to score 30.39% of the vote in the mayoral election in Vasylkiv, just ahead of Serhiy Sabov, who was backed by the opposition Udar party and who scored 28.25%, according to the committee.

The official results will be released by the Central Election Commission later this month.

“There is a trend whereby special elections in 80% of cases are won by the Regions Party,” Yevhen Kopatko, the director of Research & Branding Group, told Interfax-Ukraine.

“The main thing at the local level is the extent to which a candidate fulfils election promises, while politics often takes a back seat,” Kapatko, who closely works with the Regions Party, said. “So, political affiliation at the local elections, in my opinion, is not the key factor.”

The elections were supposed to be a test for the opposition groups ahead of upcoming presidential election in March 2015 as they have pledged to oust President Viktor Yanukovych.

The mayoral election in Vasylkiv, the Kiev region, which had he presence of Vitaliy Klichko, the leader of Udar party who is expected to be one of the main contenders at the upcoming presidential election, was seen as particularly important.

It was supposed to show Klichko’s ability to rally voters in support of Sabov, and also his ability to defend election outcome, qualities that will be required to defeat Yanukovych in March 2015.

But there may have been other forces at play, including manipulation with ballots, some activists said.

Olha Ayvazovska, an activist at the Opora civic action group, said that at least 269 ballots appear to have gone missing in the process of vote counting. The missing ballots may have had a major impact on the election outcome because the difference between Sabodash and Sabov is expected to be in the neighborhood of 240 votes.

“We believe that there are 269 missing ballots at 18 polling stations,” Ayvazovska said. “That’s while the gap between the top candidates is at 240 votes.”

Sabov, who enjoyed the backing from Klichko, said that the party will stand to defend the vote. “I believe that the united opposition has won. The single candidate has won,” he said, adding that the party is exploring the possibility of legally challenging the vote.

Sabadash, his rival from the Regions Party, said “if there were any violation, there were insignificant.”

“The government has done everything possible to organize these elections,” Sabadash said. “I believe the elections couldn’t be rigged.”

The Regions Party also denied allegations from the Committee of Ukrainian Voters of the possible election fraud at the mayoral election in Yalta.

The committee on Sunday registered a dramatic increase in turnout in the last hours of the vote in Yalta without any visible increase in the number of people casting ballots.

At some polling stations, the number of people casting ballots during the last hour exceeded by 10 times the number of people casting ballots earlier in the day.

But the Regions Party rejected the claims.

“Any message of this kind is the fruit of their imagination,” Serhiy Karnaukh, the leader of the local Regions Party branch, said. “It’s easy to verify. Let [the committee] provide documentary evidence or any other evidence” of the fraud. (tl/ez)