On September 30 Ukraine will call on roughly 3,000 observers representing almost every western European country, the United States, Canada and most countries of the former Soviet Union. In 2006, just over 3,500 observers monitored the parliamentary poll, while in 2004, up to 9,000 international observers monitored each separate round of the presidential election.
The decrease in observers seems to be both a logistical issue because of the short notice of the poll, and a result of Ukraine’s success in conducting a free and fair election in 2006.
Unfounded falsification fears?
Despite regular accusations by one side or the other of vote rigging and a bumpy start that included an attempt to keep the leading opposition bloc off the ballot, most international missions cautiously suggest that this success is continuing. “The atmosphere is more complicated and more polarised [than 2006],” says Peter Novotny of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organisations (ENEMO). However, the group has seen no sign of systematic attempts to rig the election, and has not registered a higher level of concern than in 2006. “If there is fraud, it will most likely be localised,” Novotny adds.
ENEMO, which fielded the most observers per round in 2004 (more than 1,000) will bring around 450 observers to Ukraine this year from 16 countries in the CIS and central and eastern Europe.
Novotny notes that ENEMO has enjoyed “good co-operation” from the governing Party of Regions, which has organised a working group to liaise on observation issues. Regions provides dossier of complaints and information on a weekly basis, but so far, Novotny says, “the folder is smaller than in 2006.”
Novotny stresses that all parties send concerns or complaints to be examined by ENEMO. These checks are based on accepted United Nations observation standards documented in the Declaration on Principles of International Election Observation. With the exception of the For a Fair Election group, apparently comprised primarily of Russian MPs, all international observation missions in Ukraine have signed this declaration.
All organisations will coordinate their work in order to cover as many of the 34,000 polling stations in Ukraine as possible. Observers estimate that 3,000 observers can realistically visit only 18,000 polling stations on election-day, leaving a significant portion unmonitored.
New elections, old worries
Most observers’ concerns currently centre around issues lingering from previous elections: inaccurate voter lists, questions over home voting and proxy voting.
In its pre-election statement, the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI), which will field a delegation of approximately two dozen observers, characterised as “very troubling” a decision by the CEC to remove important safeguards related to home voting.
The home ballot in Ukraine is intended to be used by disabled voters who are unable to travel to polling stations. In 2004, two eastern regions – Mykolaev and Donetsk – saw up to 30% of total ballots cast at home. “The mobile ballot box became a major instrument of fraud,” wrote the NDI.
In order to deal with this concern, in 2005 Ukraine began requiring medical certificates for home voting but the CEC’s ruling subsequently eliminated this safeguard. However, the ruling was overturned by the courts, which ordered the CEC to create uniform procedures to ensure that those who cast their ballot at home were truly disabled. To date, the CEC has not done so. This could theoretically “open the door to significant falsification of votes,” according to the NDI.
Observers are however pleased with new electoral amendments that will allow observers to compare the number of ballots inside a returned mobile (home) ballot box with the number who officially requested a home vote.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has also highlighted difficulties with voter lists. In its Interim Report, the organisation noted: “Unlike in 2006, updated voter lists will be sent directly to District Election Commissions rather than the CEC, and no national database of voters will be compiled. This makes it impossible to check for possible cross-region multiple entries on a nationwide scale.” For this reason, Novotny says, observers will be watching for the “bus caravans” seen in 2004, transporting voters from polling station to polling station to repeatedly cast votes.
The Party of Regions also recently charged that preparations for fraud are being conducted in Ukraine based on ‘proxy’ votes. The Party of Regions claims that many of the estimated 3,000,000 Ukrainians living abroad could use either relatives or party officials to vote on their behalf for either Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence Bloc or the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, thus conducting massive fraud. Similar accusations were made in both 2004 and 2006.
Observation missions wonder what will happen on the day after the election. “What will the parties do if they lose, but refuse to accept it?” asked one observer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. For this reason, the risk of court battles and street protests still exists, observers believe. “And anything can happen in Ukraine,” Novotny adds.
