Ottawa, ON - After observing the October 28th Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections as a member of the largest election observation mission assembled by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), James Bezan, Member of Parliament for Selkirk-Interlake shared his views on how the elections were handled.

“While there were some problems with the openness of this election, it was very promising to see Ukrainians exercise their democratic rights in strong numbers despite an unlevelled political playing field,” said MP Bezan. 

MP Bezan served as the regional co-ordinator of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA) team deployed in the Chernivtsi oblast and was a member of the OSCE PA Advisory Board for the Ukrainian election. Bezan also acted as the team leader of the Canadian OSCE PA delegation, which consisted of parliamentarians from all official parties in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

“I would like to applaud everyone from Canada who volunteered their time for the people of Ukraine,” said MP Bezan.  “Ukraine is still a relatively new democracy, and achieving freedom and fairness in elections will not be a simple task. The 500 plus Canadian observers who were deployed in either the CANADEM, OSCE or the Ukrainian World Congress missions, all deserve to be commended for assisting the Ukrainian people exercise their democratic rights.”  The Government of Canada supported both the CANADEM and OSCE missions.

According to the OSCE, Election Day was calm and peaceful overall, and the voting and counting was assessed mostly positively by the observers.  There was a strong turnout and a well-conducted polling process with positive engagement from the Ukrainian people.  

Tabulation, however, was assessed negatively, as it lacked transparency.  OSCE international observers concluded that Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections were characterized by a tilted playing field. This was the result, primarily, of the abuse of administrative resources, as well as a lack of transparency in campaign and party financing, and of balanced media coverage.  The political environment is dominated by powerful economic groups, to the detriment of the electoral process.

The OSCE concluded that voters still had a choice between distinct parties and candidate registration was inclusive, (with two notable exceptions), representing a wide variety of political views.  Two political leaders are currently serving questionable jail sentences.  

Bezan concluded, “Unfortunately, many Ukrainians have lost trust in the process and deserve better. Hopefully, the disappointment expressed in the overall assessments will galvanize Ukraine’s political stakeholders into delivering the democratic change which Ukrainians clearly seek.”

PHOTO

MP James Bezan