The government’s draft election bill is coming under increasing criticism at home and abroad for potentially slanting the October 2012 parliamentary contest in the ruling Party of Regions’ favor.
Observers criticized the plan to repeat the Ukrainian tradition of changing electoral legislation shortly before voting, and the process of pushing through the bill without sufficient consultation with experts and opposition parties.
The biggest dent in the elections’ credibility would come if ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko were convicted in her ongoing abuse-of-office trial, where she faces up to 10 years in jail. Her faction is the second largest in parliament and, according to the polls, also the second most popular.
But experts say that, even if she is freed and allowed to take part, the election bill could lead to a step back from the parliamentary elections in 2007, which were widely judged free and fair.
The draft law – which is set to be debated in parliament this month – foresees a mixed election system with half of the legislature’s 450 seats being allocated via a single geographic mandate, with first-past-the post constituencies.
The draft law – which is set to be debated in parliament this month – foresees a mixed election system with half of the legislature’s 450 seats being allocated via a single geographic mandate, with first-past-the post constituencies.
The other half will be decided through nationwide proportional representation of political parties who choose their candidates.
Minor parties will struggle to enter parliament because of proposed increases in the threshold to 5 percent from 3 percent, the elimination of the right of blocs to contest seats and the removal of the voting choice “against all,” among other changes.
The bill in its current form appears likely to reduce opportunities for “fair and equal competition among electoral contestants” and is being drafted in a “non-inclusive, non-transparent and non-accountable” manner, said Kristina Wilfore, who heads the U.S.-funded National Democratic Institute in Ukraine.
Wilfore’s NDI and the International Republican Institute, another American pro-democratic institution, both withdrew from the president’s draft law working group on March 17, citing flaws in the process.
Major and minor opposition parties, including those not holding seats in parliament, as well as civil society groups, have complained that the law is being drafted unilaterally by the president and his allies without their input.
On Sept. 28, European Union Ambassador Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira lamented the unilateral process of drafting the election law.
“There is not one European country in which the president defines the electoral system,” Teixeira said during a lecture at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy.
Opposition leaders such as Serhiy Sobolev, a member of the ex-prime minister’s Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko minority faction, argue that there is no reason to change Ukraine’s existing election legislation.
The two last parliamentary elections held under existing rules were recognized internationally as the most democratic ever in Ukraine’s history, he said in a recent TV appearance. In contrast, Sobolev said that parliamentary elections held a decade ago with a mixed system were generally seen as flawed and failing to meet democratic standards.
There will be doubts of legitimacy if the (parliamentary election) law is changed. They want more power and will preserve it instead of saving face in front of Europeans.
– Vadym Karasiov, director of the Global Strategies Institute
Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych said on TV Sept. 26 that President Viktor Yanukovych chose the electoral system. Yanukovyuch “has already answered this question a long time ago. He’ll propose to parliament the draft law which foresees a mixed electoral system,” said Lavrynovych on ICTV.
“This will be a ‘fabrication of the majority’ to help the ruling party,” said Vadym Karasiov, director of the Global Strategies Institute, a Kyiv policy center.
The political analyst said single mandate districts in past elections, including the recent 2010 local and regional elections, are vulnerable to electoral manipulation where vote buying is rampant, and administrative government resources are used to favor particular candidates, including court decisions.
“There will be doubts of legitimacy if the (parliamentary election) law is changed,” Karasiov said. “They want more power and will preserve it instead of saving face in front of Europeans.”
Karasiov predicted that whatever seats the Party of Regions doesn’t scoop up in the nationwide constituency, it will make up for “in the single mandate races” as in 2002, when the pro-government Za Yedyna Ukrayina became the main force in parliament under Leonid Kuchma’s presidency.
Last week the European Council’s Venice Commission, an advisory body comprising of experts in constitutional law, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, both cautioned changing the law yet again to avoid deepening the public’s trust towards the electoral system.
“Such frequent changes of the electoral system do not contribute to the stability of the electoral legal framework and electoral system,” the IFES review warned.
Civil society members present at the Sept. 27 meeting of a working group on the draft law said the body didn’t take into account the “principal issues” that the international organizations addressed.
Kyiv Post staff writer Mark Rachkevych can be reached at [email protected].
