Fair Elections: Think Again!

By Ron Chyczij, Toronto

Recently, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, controlled by the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Party of Regions - in their collective wisdom or lack thereof - passed a new Presidential Election Law that has put a black cloud over the upcoming presidential elections.  Fair and free elections are a difficult norm to achieve, but a very easy one to lose.  Ukrainian election law experts agree that this law has pushed back the clock some 10 years regarding compliance with democratic norms for the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine, slated for  January 17, 2010.  They say the prospects for fair elections have been diminished greatly.  I agree whole heartedly with this assessment and it is also the reason President Viktor Yushchenko put out a call to the Diaspora and International Observer Groups to speak out on the situation.

It was only a short 5 years ago that we all observed the phenomenon of the Orange Revolution – Ukraine’s desperate, but needed,  act of direct democracy played out in the streets of Kyiv on Independence Square (the ‘Maidan’).  Who can forget those heady days?  This all set our hearts and minds to thinking that Ukraine had finally turned the corner on eradicating voter fraud.  In fact, the last two Parliamentary Elections in 2006 and 2007 were fairly free of violations.  Not perfect, but progress was evident.  The most notable achievement in those elections was the reduction of “administrative forces” – as it is known in the parlance of Observer Groups - in manipulating the vote.  This is the practice of using governmental, civic and other administrative resources to get citizens to vote in a certain way or to actually commit direct fraud by stuffing ballot boxes. 

Comparison Of Ukraine’s Election Laws

Let me give you some examples of how the new Presidential Election Law will potentially affect the outcome of the upcoming elections in 2010.  You decide what the intentions of this law really are.  What is most troubling is that the new law stripped away established democratic provisions already in place.  That is to say, the Verkhovna Rada purposely removed or changed existing sections of the law that were there to achieve fair elections.  Let’s look:

In addition to the above, there are several more aspects of the law that do not conform to established democratic norms and/or make the elections more difficult to conduct fairly.  In fact, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) in conjunction with the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) prepared 22 specific recommendations to address major concerns, after consulting with various election law experts.  At the time of their annual general meeting in Ukraine, this past August, the UWC raised their concerns in meetings with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.  In response, she asked the UWC to present their recommended changes to the Cabinet of Ministers.  A delegation of their representatives - members of the Canada Ukraine Foundation (CUF) - were sent to Ukraine to do exactly that in early September prior to the proclamation of the new law, but to no avail.  Despite considerable efforts to meet with government officials on the invitation of the Prime Minister, they found ways to delay and avoid face-to-face contact and eventually the Verkhovna Rada responded by proclaiming the new Presidential Election Law without any amended changes.  

The Verkhovna Rada authors of this law cited “efficiency” as the major rationale for the new law.  They should be reminded that a dictatorship is the most efficient form of governing a country.  Eliminating and/or restricting the role of Election Observers, reducing the oversight functions of the Central Election Commission and destroying the due process of law – all of which may add some time, but help ensure clean elections are surely worth preserving.  All things considered, this new law reminds me of what happened at the last presidential elections in Russia.  At that time, the Russian government made it so difficult for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – a long standing credible international election observer organization - to take part in the Russian presidential elections that they eventually decided not to participate.  Ukraine’s new election law was designed to have a “quick count” presidential election with little or no opportunity to challenge the results should voter fraud or other serious violations occur.  Knowledgeable election law experts say that the real motives of the controlling forces of the Verkhovna Rada are clear; their stated reasoning is disingenuous.

Fortunately since then, based on a challenge by President Viktor Yushchenko, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine has struck down some of the more egregious sections of the new election law – five in total.  Nevertheless, opportunities for greater fraud and manipulation have been created by the new law and are still there.  With this in mind, UWC and UCC have decided to mount a large international observer mission to help avoid the type of election fraud that occurred during the 2004 Presidential Elections – prelude to the Orange Revolution.  In order to help achieve this, the Canada Ukraine Foundation (CUF) has organized a cross country speaking tour by Yaroslav Davydovych – former Head of Ukraine’s Central Election Commission (CEC) – and one of the few members of the CEC that refused to sign the official “protocol” after the second round of the 2004 Presidential Elections that ratified fraudulent voter results.  Subsequently, Mr. Davydovych was made head of the CEC and presided over the 3^rd round of the presidential elections that resulted in the election of President Viktor Yushchenko.

We will be utilizing the considerable knowledge of Mr. Davydovych in Ukrainian election laws and his insider experience to inform the Canadian public of the potential pitfalls in the current election law as it stands now.  At the same time, we will be seeking additional volonteers from the Ukrainian Canadian Community interested in becoming International Observers for the upcoming presidential elections and some financial support from the broader community.  Interested readers are asked to attend one of his sessions scheduled for Winnipeg, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.  Hearing his comments, as someone who was at the heart of the Orange Revolution, should be an eye-opening experience. Readers are asked to kindly look for additional advertisements regarding his appearances and to attend these events to get a realistic perspective of past voter fraud in Ukraine and the potential for this occurring again.

 
Ron Chyczij is a member of CUF’s election observer organizing committee for the upcoming presidential elections in Ukraine (January 2010) and a long time International Observer in Ukraine, including his role as Chief Observer in the 2007 Parliamentary Elections.  He has prepared several reports on Observer Mission findings and is intimately knowledgeable on the opportunities for fraud during such elections.