The results were neither an honest victory for the ruling party nor a victory for democratic elections.
The vote was a triumph for the Ukrainian people, including opposition leaders, businesspeople, civic activists, regular voters and others – even, possibly, some media-owning oligarchs – who decided to slow Yanukovych’s monopolization of power and march toward authoritarianism.
As if sensing the danger, Yanukovych and his Party of Regions cronies frantically changed the election law last year. In this they inexplicably had help from the oppositon.
The country got dragged back to the mixed system, in which only half of the seats are selected by party list and the other half from single-mandate constituencies, where most of the violations, falsification and bribing took place.
In spite of all the obstacles, voters seized their last chance until 2015 to change the fate of the nation, which most think is headed in the wrong direction.
The hardships, however, were numerous. Yanukovych and people around him have done everything to entrench and enrich themselves since coming to power in 2010. They took control of the parliament, courts, prosecutors and judges.
They throttled the news media by trying to intimidate remaining critical voices, including the besieged TVi station. They imprisoned their most threatening rival, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, knowing that if she ever returned to power, they are the ones who may be facing criminal charges – not her. They continued with non-transparent privatizations of state assets.
Their efforts were enough to keep the Party of Regions in power, joined by their Communist Party allies and independent lawmakers who will surely cash in by joining the ruling coalition.
However, Ukrainians voted for change and opposition forces would have won even more seats than they did if the vote had been honest. About 70 percent voted against the Party of Regions on the party list. Voters kicked out Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine and elected two new forces – opposition parties led by boxer Vitali Klitschko and nationalist Oleh Tiahnybok. Voters also rewarded Tymoshenko’s party with a second-place finish.
The Central Election Commission did a patchy job. Nonetheless, the CEC caught some fraudsters attempting to change results on behalf of pro-government candidates. Chairpersons of election commissions told of attempts to bribe them to change results. Much of this fraud wouldn’t have come to light without an energetic opposition, determined to gather as many copies of polling station results (protocols) as they could for evidence.
The CEC, meanwhile, could have blunted the most blatant fraud by being more open in deliberations and by tabulating votes in a more transparent way. The process was criticized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s long-term election observation mission.
Yanukovych is not Vladimir Putin or Alexander Lukashenko, both of whom rig elections and smash opponents with gusto. But that doesn’t make him a democrat either.
Ukraine is not Russia, nor is it Belarus and. For that, we are all grateful when it comes to political pluralism and free speech. But the credit belongs to the strong will of the people.
