The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's top election watchdog issued a post-election report on Nov. 9 that exposes more undemocratic features of Ukraine's Oct. 28 parliamentary election.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s top election watchdog issued a post-election report on Nov. 9 that exposes more undemocratic features of Ukraine’s Oct. 28 parliamentary election.
The assessment is not going to help Ukraine’s leaders make the case internationally that the vote, as Prime Minister Mykola Azarov declared, “were the best organized elections in Ukraine in the history of its independence.”
In the post-election interim report (a final report is expected later this month), the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights found fault with the vote tabulation, saying it lacked transparency. The election observation mission also found strong evidence of instances in which falsification of election results took place.
Observers assessed negatively the vote-tabulation process in nearly half of district election commissions — 77 out of 161 observed, according to the report.
“Some 25 DECs [district election commissions] observed by the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission in the days following election day experienced serious problems with tabulating the results in single-mandate districts due to irregularities and other issues, including intimidation of DEC and PEC [precinct election commission] members, interference in the work of DECs, instances of pre-signed PEC protocols, PEC protocols missing pages, and differences in copies of the same PEC protocols,” the international organization found.
Moreover, the OSCE/ODIHR “identified cases of preliminary results being changed after they were posted on the CEC website; there are strong indications that some results have been manipulated in favour of certain contestants.”
Additionally, the report notes that some parties and candidates used gaps in the law “regarding establishing results and the court system as a tool to invalidate PEC results or disrupt the tabulation process at DECs.”
With respect to vote-tabulation, the report found: “The main problems reported immediately after election day included DEC [district election commission] premises with insufficient space, overcrowding, tension, and tampering with election materials submitted by PECs [precinct election commissions]. The lengthy processing of PEC results was exacerbated by long breaks announced by some DECs, and by the very high number of PECs that were obliged to compile corrected protocols because of minor mistakes or because the figures in their protocols could not be reconciled. The tabulation process lacked transparency, especially as the room in which the election results were entered into the computer system for transmission to the CEC was, as a rule, not accessible to most DEC members or to proxies, domestic or international observers.”
The OSCE/ODIHR mission praised the CEC for posting “election results by polling station on its website; however, some essential data, such as the number of invalid votes or the number of voters who received ballots, were not included.”
The CEC has said that falsification in five electoral districts out of 225 should prompt a re-vote in those constituencies, while some opposition leaders — such as Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms Party leader Vitali Klitschko — are calling for a new national election because of countrywide fraud.
Others have argued that, no matter the level of falsification, the opposition was still able to garner a strong minority of the 450 seats and hold the ruling pro-presidential Party of Regions to 188 seats, forcing them to seek alliances with other parties and independent parliamentarians.
The OSCE/ODIHR election report also found instances of intimidation of election officials and interference with their work, as well as heavy-handed actions by police.
“Irregularities included intimidation of DEC and PEC members and interference in the work of DECs, often by candidates, proxies, observers or others.4 Instances were also observed of pre-signed blank PEC protocols, PEC protocols missing pages, and differences in copies of the same PEC protocols,” the report says. “Cases of DECs reconvening and changing results were observed, as well as power cuts at some DEC premises while tabulation was ongoing. OSCE/ODIHR EOM LTOs observed the presence of special security forces outside or inside seven DECs, in some cases blocking access to the premises. In Mykolaiv Oblast, special forces entered DEC 132 and seized PEC protocols, following a court order to deliver them to the court.”
Vague provisions of the electoral law led to numerous recounts, which were decided by DECs based on contestants’ complaints, court decisions and following cases where packages with election materials had illegally been unsealed after they had been delivered to the DEC. In two cases, DECs found during the recount of majoritarian PEC results that a large number of ballots initially counted in favour of leading candidates were found to be marked for more than one candidate and were therefore invalid; they had apparently been tampered with at the DEC premises.”
The mission also found two cases in which results were simply changed to declare a different winner in single-mandate races.
“The OSCE/ODIHR EOM noted two cases where changes in the preliminary results posted on the CEC website after 100 per cent of polling stations had been processed resulted in the candidate who had initially come in second winning the seat. This occurred in electoral districts 14 (Vinnytsia Oblast and 132 (Mykolaiv Oblast). According to the CEC, this was due to DECs changing the results after they had already been entered into the system,” the OSCE found.
The entire post-election interim report can be found here: http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/97077
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].
