You're reading: OSCE: Ukraine’s election fails to meet democratic standards (UPDATED)

Ukraine’s streak of four relatively democratic national elections, from 2004 to 2012, has come to an end with the Oct. 28 parliamentary vote.

Ukraine’s streak of four relatively democratic national elections, from 2004 to 2012, has come to an end with the Oct. 28 parliamentary vote.

The 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which fields the largest and most credible election observation missions, in a preliminary statement today said the vote represented an apparent reversal in Ukraine’s democratic progress.

The assessment is strengthened because it was supported by other international European institutions, including the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and
the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

They found that the election included several flaws:

·  a tilted playing field;

·  abuse of administrative (official) resources;

·  lack of transparency in the campaign, the workings of the Central Election Commission, party financing and vote tabulation;

·  lack of balanced media coverage;

·  detrimental influence of powerful groups, leading to a lack of diversity in media ownership and pluralism, as well as a lack of
transparency in campaign and party financing;

·  lack of representation on election commissions from some political parties competing in the vote, while the ruling pro-presidential Party of Regions had strong representation; and

·  lack of effective sanctions for serious violations of law.

“Considering the abuse of power, and the excessive role of money in this election, democratic progress appears to have reversed in Ukraine,” said Walburga Habsburg Douglas, the special coordinator who led the OSCE short-term election
observation mission and the head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation. “One should not have to visit a prison to hear from leading political figures in the country.”

Douglas’ prison reference was to imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, who were barred from running because of criminal convictions seen in the West as politically motivated. Despite her imprisonment, Tymoshenko’s Batkivshyna Party appears headed for a second place finish in the election.

The harsh assessment by the OSCE is bound to be a big setback for Ukraine’s stalled attempts to integrate more closely with European Union with the goal of eventually joining the democratic bloc of 27 nations. The United States and the
EU had put Ukraine’s leaders on notice that they would be watching the conduct of this election closely, and it was a test that President Viktor Yanukovych and his administration failed.

But there are signs emerging that the authorities are not prepared to accept OSCE’s criticism. Hanna Herman, adviser to the president, said that the violations were not systemic, and the report is generally positive about Ukraine.

“These evaluations are giving us a great credit of trust from the world and an opportunity to say that we’re on the right track,” she said.

Party of Regions lawmaker Volodymyr Oliynyk furthermore added that there were no legal grounds to call the parliamentary election other than free and fair.

“We witnessed a new phenomenon: The ruling party remains in first place and it’s harder always to stay on top,” said Oliynyk at a Party of Regions press conference. “And the election was competitive…we saw two new parties make it into parliament for the first time (UDAR and Svoboda).”

This clearly was not the message international observers were trying to send.

“Ukrainians deserved better from these elections. The ‘oligarchization’ of the whole process meant that citizens lost
their ownership of the election, as well as their trust in it” said Andreas Gross, the Head of the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe (PACE) delegation. “Unfortunately, the great democratic potential of Ukrainian society was
not realized in yesterday’s vote.”

Audrey Glover, the head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights long-term election observation
mission, said government authorities failed to respond to campaign violations properly.

“The lack of appropriate responses by the authorities to the various electoral violations has led to a climate of impunity.” Glover
said. “This has cast a shadow over the election and the democratic progress that, until recently, Ukraine had been making.”

The news media environment, in particular, came under sharp scrutiny, according to the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary findings.

“The media environment is characterized by a virtual absence of editorial autonomy on television,” according to OSCE/ODIHR. “The politicization of TV by businesspeople and the dependence of state-owned broadcasters on the state budget significantly limit political pluralism, in favor of the ruling powers. The direct access of media owners and political actors to news content,
the latter through ‘envelope payments’ to journalists, hinders investigative journalism and ultimately undermines the media’s crucial role as the watchdog for political power.”

Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected]