 |
|
|
P.O.B. 20596
Tel-Aviv 61202, Israel
|
|
Tel.: 972-5235-14605
Fax: 972-3505-5335 |
|
E-mail:
|
|
|
|
| Conclusions of the Mission of International Observers of the Institute for the Countries of Eastern Europe and CIS (ICEE) on the presidential elections in Ukraine - 2004 |
(Excerpts from the Official Report of the Mission)
Kiev - New York - Tel-Aviv
December 6, 2004
1. GENERAL
The Mission of Official International Observers of the Institute for the Countries of Eastern Europe and CIS (hereinafter "ICEE") assigned to monitor the presidential elections in Ukraine proceeded with its work from October 01, 2004 to November 23, 2004. The procedural guidance and coordination of the Mission observers was done by the ICEE, which considered the Mission's work as its special project realized jointly with the "Consent International" with whom a protocol on cooperation and information exchanges was signed. The mission carried out its work with participation of 62 ICEE experts coming from the USA, Israel, and Germany, who were accredited to the Central Election Commission of Ukraine (CEC) as international observers.
During the election campaign and the voting the mission experts carried out their tasks in the territories of the city of Kiev and 19 regions of Ukraine, namely: Kiev, Sumy, Chernovtsy, Ivano-Frankovsk, Zhitomir, Khmelnitsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Lugansk, Donetsk, Ternopol, Vinnitsa, Volynsk, Cherkassy, Lvov, Poltava, Chernigov, Rovno, Kirovograd and Odessa.
The Mission's work included several stages:
- Analysis of election laws of Ukraine.
- Workshops for the Mission observers on the "Presidential Elections Law" and preparation of procedural materials for the ICEE experts.
- Supervision over the arrangements for and running of the Ukrainian presidential elections (business trip of a team of experts to Ukraine).
- Monitoring of the media and analysing the situation before the first and second rounds of the vote.
- Monitoring of the voting on the Election Day in the first and second rounds.
- Summarizing and analyzing the materials collected by the Mission in the course of the first and second rounds.
- Preparation of the Mission's comprehensive report on the presidential elections in Ukraine.
The Mission's work was based on the procedural methodology developed by the ICEE and adapted to the specific electoral process and the details of election laws in Ukraine.
The items evaluated in the process of the mission's work:
- The legislative basis (positive and negative aspects of the Ukrainian "Presidential Election Law," the "Law on Functioning of Political Parties", some subordinate laws)
.
- Actions of the presidential candidates and of election headquarters.
- The organization, logistics, and technologies of the election campaigns run by different candidates for the presidential post.
- Electoral activity, work of state authorities in Ukraine on informing the population, degree of the population awareness.
- Transparency of the electoral process.
- Freedom of expression and functioning of all types of the media.
- Managing of the electoral process by the state authorities (including municipal bodies); functioning of election commissions at all levels.
- Activities of all the subjects of the electoral process the day before the election and on the day of vote.
- Functioning of local election commissions on the day of elections (the first and second rounds).
- Rigging and violations of the election laws on the day of vote.
2. PRINCIPAL CONCLUSIONS OF THE MISSION
The conclusions mentioned below were arrived at as a result of a thorough analytical work of the ICEE Mission's experts. First, they have summarised the facts reported by the local observers, based on their personal observations and meetings with the representatives of local authorities, public and political bodies, the media etc. Second, they have assessed the information produced by analytical and monitoring groups. Third, they have analyzed the irregularities in the elections process attributable to its participants, as established and registered by the Mission's observers.
1. The legislative basis of the elections generally meets the international democratic standards eliminating selective approach to any groups of citizens or social sectors because of their political, ethnic, or other principles. At the same time, it has certain insufficiencies, which had an undoubtedly negative effect on the election campaign. The most significant of these, in our opinion, are:
it was too easy to register as a candidate for the post of the president of Ukraine;
lack of the laws or subordinate laws regulating the work of the Internet media and Internet operators;
the legislation lacks clearly defined measures which can be applied to the violators of election laws (in particular as regards the electioneering and propaganda, etc.), nor are there clearly defined bodies authorized to take such measures;
inadequate methods of forming territorial election commissions, which are too bulky and poorly organized, with no standards available to qualify the members of such commissions;
no clearly defined mechanics to monitor the actions of candidates, their headquarters, party activists and the media as to their compliance with the "Election Law", other laws and the CEC rulings.
2. The Mission has noted irregularities in the activities of the presidential candidates and their headquarters. Some candidates participated in undemocratic and unlawful events during the election campaign before the first round. Multiple violations were registered in which both central and local headquarters of the candidates were involved, or which occurred with their connivance. Before the second round of election, though the positions of the candidates themselves were generally balanced, multiple violations committed by party activists in the headquarters have been reported.
The Mission has also analyzed and expertly evaluated political methods used by the candidate headquarters with reference to "white" and "black" PR technologies.
According to the estimate of the Mission's experts, the past elections were characterized by disproportionate "protest voting," as most of the candidates were unable to come up with their original programs and ideological objectives. The Mission has also noted a great number of openly biased publications against the competing candidates.
There were instances of psychological pressure being exercised on the voters in order to intimidate them. In particular, we interpret as such some statements made in the media by a number of "Nasha Ukraina" [Our Ukraine] politicians; of "colour campaigning? (formally not regulated by the "Presidential Election Law", but actually becoming a symbolic token of a candidate); and of direct propagandizing which was not discontinued on the voting days. It is also worth noting the institution of youth movements and staging of protest demonstrations with violent objectives; starting special anonymous Internet-projects etc.
3. Monitoring and evaluation of election commissions' activities, including informing the population of the forthcoming election and voting procedures, have revealed a number of various irregularities, most prominent of which were as follows:
informing the voters about the place and procedures of voting was greatly deficient, belated in many places and sometimes carried out with interference of the candidates' headquarters;
the procedure of voting was not sufficiently thought out which resulted in crowds forming at the polling stations, interfered with the voters right to express their free will and made it possible for some voters to leave the polling station with uncancelled ballot-papers;
voting without required identification, without producing passports and instances of repeat voting;
electioneering and agitation at the polling stations as well as exercising pressure and sometimes directly intimidating some of the voters;
misuse of absentee ballots and inadequate use of mobile ballot boxes
It should be also noted that by the second round the number of such irregularities considerably decreased, which is indicative of a serious work done by the machinery of election commissions at all levels.
4. As regards the media in general, we can note their extreme political leanings. Instead of impartial analysis of the candidate activities and the election situation in general, the media directly participated in the campaigns using both complimentary and discrediting materials.
Nevertheless, despite such strong political bias of the media, highlighting polar points of view made it possible for an average voter to get a complete range of opinions and evaluations regarding all candidates, which maintained the freedom of speech and democracy in the coverage of the elections process.
5. The Mission's observers have noted an extremely high electoral activity of Ukrainian citizens, which undoubtedly speaks of political maturity of the nation and the interest of the average voter in democratic development of the country.
6. The Mission's observers have noted numerous inadequate actions of all subjects of the election process on the eve of the Election Day and in the first round, which, though, in the second round were mostly prevented.
7. The Mission focused its attention on monitoring the election process and vote count. The Mission's experts were monitoring this process from the beginning of voting at 08:00 (both on October 31, 2004 for the first round, and November 21, 2004 for the second round) to its end at 20:00 and through transporting of ballot papers to territorial election commissions.
8. Paragraph 80 of the "Presidential Election Law" specifies that for the election to be declared invalid at some voting station the number of ballots declared invalid, or the amount of ballots "thrown-in," or illicit voting by absentee ballots should exceed 10 percent of the total number. When assessing the legitimacy of the commission's actions and the legitimacy of the election in general our Mission used the same index of the critical level of violations, which was not exceeded in any locality monitored by us. In some instances, the activities of our observers prevented attempts to violate the law and resulted in better functioning of election commissions. In addition, the Mission observers registered some attempts to infringe the voting procedures in the second round (voting without passports, instances of repeat voting, and illicit use of absentee ballots) on the part of headquarters of both candidates at contested ballot stations, where in fact the infringements by one of the parties balanced the infringements committed by the other party.
9. The running of voting process was overall smooth and monitored by observers from the headquarters, who made sure that there were no violations of the voting procedure. The number of polling stations at which the voting was upset or impeded due to interference of headquarters' activists or force majeure situations, same as the number of voters at these stations, was percentage wise too small to seriously affect the count of votes.
The Mission had submitted preliminary reports on the results of the first and second rounds. It should be notes that the CIC took account of the recommendations of our Mission and of other observers, and by the second round the number of purely technical faults related to inaccuracies of voter's lists was greatly reduced. However, the preconditions for some illicit actions were not eliminated due to general insufficiencies of the election laws.
Proceeding from the above, the ICEE Official Mission of International Observers concludes that:
Irregularities in the course of election registered by the Mission's observers have not fundamentally affected the key components of the democratic election process, such as transparency, free will manifestation by the voters, freedom of speech and political debates. Technical inaccuracies at the level of territorial election commissions were partly balanced by high political activity of the electorate. Generally, the election complied with the "Presidential Election Law," and the Law itself can be regarded as meeting the democratic norms.
Based on the above, the ICEE Official Mission of International Observers recommends considering the passed presidential election in Ukraine as legitimate and generally meeting the standards of democracy and the international law.
|
| 06 Dec 2004 |
 back  top |
 print version |
|
