You're reading: Violations build up as Election Day approaches

Just several weeks ahead of Election Day, Ukraine's parliamentary campaign is already full of violations of election legislation that could affect the results and the vote’s legitimacy.

Observers from
OPORA, the largest domestic election monitoring group, point out
increasing number of incidents of campaign violations, among them
bribing voters, use of government resources of local authorities to
the advantage of some parties and candidates, obstruction in election
campaigning, unfair campaigning, use of law enforcement for campaign
help and pressure on news media.

“We have clearly
determined that the [use of] administrative resources and [vote] bribing are those factors that may influence the outcome of [upcoming
parliamentary] elections,” said Olha Ayvazovska, coordinator of
electoral programs at OPORA, but could not elaborate whether this
impact would be significant saying that it is too early to provide a
final judgment as the campaign is not over yet.

Ukraine’s parliamentary
election is scheduled to take place on Oct. 28. Half of the 450-seat
parliament will be elected through closed party lists. The other 225
seats will be distributed among winners of the election in single
mandate constituencies.

According to OPORA’s
election monitoring report, which was made public on Oct. 3, in
September the organization’s long-term observers documented 179
incidents of use of administrative resources, which is abuse of power
by officials in Ukraine, in helping to campaign select candidates and
parties, 126 incidents of voter bribing, 123 cases of obstruction in
political campaigning, 77 cases of unfair campaigning, 12 cases of
law-enforcement intrusion in campaign, and 9 incidents of pressure on
media.



Opora’s findings for September.

Similar concerns have been
pointed out by international observers from Canada in their recently
published interim report.

In many cases when a
candidate gets more popular in its constituency and has a chance to
win the vote a criminal case is launched into the politician or he is
put on the wanted list
, says Ayvazovska. She noted that although
their observers do not judge or question the legitimacy of any
particular criminal investigation, these would certainly have an
impact on the election campaigning of candidates under a pending
investigation.

Ayvazovska pointed that
the number of violations list above went up in September compared to
August and she expects them “to further increase in October.”

According to OPORA’s
monitoring, President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and its
candidates have for the last two months been the biggest recipients
of various preferences provided by local authorities and are the
biggest violators of election legislation during their campaigning.

President Yanukovych has
adopted just the opposite view on the electoral campaign in Ukraine
in the run-up to the election day.

“Today parties and
candidates in single mandate districts have equal opportunities. The
same conditions are created for everyone,” said he on Oct. 3 during
a meeting in Kyiv with Ukraine’s diplomats.

He added that the cause of
some violations that take place during the election process is a
“human factor” once again reiterating that he and his government
are committed to fair and democratic elections.

Another point of concern
for election watchdogs was complex and unclear distribution of seats
for parties and candidates in district election commissions. As a
result many smaller and unknown parties got multiple seats for their
representatives, while some other got none or very few.

Having most of their
representatives in local election commissions, which on the local
level are responsible for counting votes and deciding on voter
results, gives candidates or parties advantage in the case of
disputing voting results.

Oleksandr Chernenko, head
of Committee of Voters of Ukraine election watchdog, told TVi channel
last month that in the end these seats “were up for sale,”
pointing out that most of their ‘buyers’ were from pro-government
parties.

Western governments are
already raising eyebrows about the upcoming parliamentary elections
in Ukraine with concerns that several weeks ahead of the voting day
the conditions of campaigning do not seem to be meeting Western
standards of fair competition.

Canadian Foreign
Minister John Baird and International Cooperation Minister Julian
Fantino said they
are concerned about the irregularities in the electoral campaign in
Ukraine
that were reflected
in the recent interim report compiled by the Canadian electoral
observation mission.

“The Canadian election
observation mission’s initial findings regarding the parliamentary
election campaign under way in Ukraine are troubling,” reads their
joint statement distributed by the Embassy of Canada in Ukraine on
Oct. 3.

Earlier on Sept. 15
during the annual Yalta European Strategy Conference U.S. Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Thomas
Melia said that Ukraine could receive a “failed” grade

on its parliamentary elections judging from the existing concerns for
the vote to be fair.

He made it clear
that the jailing of farmer Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko along with
other opposition leaders and, thus, preventing them from taking part
in this election, would reflect on the elections’ legitimacy in the
West.

“I think with the
political prosecution, politically directed prosecutions against
certain opposition candidates, that has serious consequences on the
quality of the election here,” he added.

Kyiv Post staff
writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at
[email protected].
Anastasia
Forina can be reached at

[email protected]