The elections in Ukraine are over and (to no one's real surprise) the incumbent, Victor Yanukhovych, won ... albeit amdist accusations and eye-witness accounts of election fraud and irregularities by international election observers.
The Chief Election Observer for the Ukrainian World Congress during the 2012 election in Ukraine was Derek Fraser, former Canadian Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2001).
Fraser delivered the keynote speech
at the 45th Anniversary Banquet of the Ukrainian World Congress, which took place on November 17, 2012 at St. Joseph’s Ukrainian Catholic Church and Heritage Centre
in Oakville, Ontario. He spoke to events witnessed by election observers, many of which were not
disclosed or fully covered in the international media.
Here is the
text of his speech, entitled "In the Aftermath of the Elections: Where Do We Go
from Here?"
Mr. Chairman, Ladies
and Gentleman,
As Chief
Election Observer for the International Election Observer Mission of the
Ukrainian World Congress, I am pleased to report back to you on the degree of
fairness of the parliamentary elections, as well as to consider where the
Ukrainian nation that has emerged from the elections is heading and what
influence we may bring to bear to support Ukrainian sovereignty and a return to
democracy.
I would like to
thank the Ukrainian World Congress, together with the Canada Ukraine Foundation
and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, for having supported our Mission. Ours was the largest non-government
supported Mission observing the elections in Ukraine. I
believe it proved its usefulness by providing an independent viewpoint,
unconstrained by any political considerations. I hope that the findings of the Mission will support the useful work the UWC is doing in
presenting the views of the Ukrainian diaspora to governments concerned with Ukraine. I hope
that the UWC will find it useful to support such observer missions for future
Ukrainian elections.
Our Election
Observer Mission began its work on July 12. When the Mission came under the jurisdiction of the
Ukrainian World Congress on September 17. The President of the Ukrainian
Canadian Congress, Paul Grod, and Tamara Olexy, President of the Ukrainian Congress
Committee of America, became co-heads of Mission,
while I the chief Observer. We fielded between three and five long- term
observers to analyze the election campaign. For a long period, however, there
were only three of us. I would like to pay a special tribute to the
contributions of Peter Sochan and our Ukrainian adviser, Virginia Dronova. For
the elections themselves, we brought in 250 short-term observers from
approximately 20 countries.
We found that
the elections did not meet the minimum requirements for international standards
for democratic elections. We noted that the election campaign was characterized
by:
- the imprisonment of two major leaders
of the opposition,
- restricted media freedom,
- non-transparent and uncontrolled
election expenditures, including the use of government finances and
government officials,
- the gerrymandering of a significant
number of electoral districts by the Central Electoral Commission, raising
questions about the Commission’s independence and impartiality,
- the skewed membership of the
Electoral Commissions at the constituency and polling station levels,
leading to doubts about their ability to produce credible election
results,
- the blatant bribery of voters,
- a growing number of incidents, often
involving the authorities, of harassment, intimidation and, in some cases,
violence, principally directed against the opposition.
On voting day,
our observers reported several serious violations, such as duplicate ballot
boxes, a great surplus of ballots at some polling stations, and a shortage at
others. In past elections, surplus ballots have been used for fraudulent
purposes.
After the
elections, our observers continued to monitor the uncompleted counting of the
ballots in several constituencies. They condemned the falsification of the
election results in several constituency Electoral
Commissions. They pointed out the substantial discrepancies between the
official protocols of voting results prepared by the polling stations and the
final tallies posted by the Central Electoral Commission. They called on the
Central Electoral Commission to avoid formal recognition of illegitimate
election results and Ukrainian authorities to respect the rule of law.
On November 5
in Kyiv, opposition leaders demanded that officials recount votes in 13 constituencies,
where, according to the tally in the polling stations, the opposition had won, but
which the Central Electoral Commission had proclaimed, were victories for the
pro-government parties. The election authorities offered, subject to the
approval of parliament, to rerun the vote in five of these constituencies.
In undertaking
the role as Chief Observer of the Mission,
I considered that one of the roles of international observer missions should be
to exercise a restraining influence of the official conduct of the election
campaign by drawing attention to abuses of the authorities.
To some extent,
international pressure, allied with domestic opposition, did have some
influence. Spurious criminal charges were dropped against the manager of the
one remaining national independent television station TVI. A law on criminal
libel was abandoned. In response to the complaint of a leading weekly,
Ukrainsky Tizhden, that its distribution was being hampered following criticism
of the government, the Prime Minister called on news agents to permit the free
distribution of all publications. Parliament is likely to approve new elections
in five ridings where the District Electoral Commissions sought to falsify
results.
Although it is
not certain, the vigour of Ukraine’s
human rights organizations, the strength of the opposition, and international
exposure, may have also had some influence in keeping the elections partially
free. The reversion to authoritarianism could have gone further. The
opposition, in part for reasons I will go into later, did at the end receive a more
balanced coverage on television. In spite of hindrances, the opposition was
able to run a vigorous campaign. The public will was, although imperfectly,
expressed in the results.
It appears,
however, that where President Yanukovych has made certain gestures towards domestic
and international opinion, he only did so if these gestures would not detract
seriously from his principal goal of remaining in power.
The
considerable incentives that the international community did offer for
conducting honest elections and releasing the two major political prisoners,
Yuliya Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko, including support by the United States, the
Association and Free Trade Agreement with the EU, and the Free Trade Agreement
with Canada, while desirable, seem to have counted for less for President
Yanukovych than the desire to obtain, in spite of growing discontent, a
majority in parliament of at least 226, and if possible, the 300 necessary to
amend the constitution, apparently so that he could be re-elected as President by
parliament, instead of by the population, when his term is up in 2015.
In fact, the
Party of Regions lost between 25–30 percent of its votes (2 million voters)
compared to the elections of 2006 and 2007. According to the official figures
for all but five of the seats, the Party of Regions won only 185 seats. The
Party will, however, attempt to create a majority by absorbing its clones among
the independent candidates, who took 43 seats, and the small parties, which got
six. The Party of Regions will then likely use its usual tactics of bribe and
blackmail to rob deputies from the opposition parties. The principal opposition
party, Batkivschyna, got 101 seats, UDAR, received 40, and Svoboda, 37. The
Party of Regions had hoped to have the Communists, who obtained 32 seats, as a
coalition partner. They, however, have declined.
Whatever the
success of these manoeuvres, the structure that emerges may be prone to
splitting. It will certainly will likely fall short of the majority needed to
change the constitution.
Yanukovych’s
hold on power has a purpose. After the Russian revolution, when Lenin saw that
no other country would succumb to communism, he adopted the policy of socialism
within one country. President Yanukovych has stood Lenin’s policy on its head.
He has adopted the policy of capitalism within one Family. He has set out to
enrich his immediate Family, not only at a cost to the country, but also at the
expense of his erstwhile oligarch allies. Formerly highly placed government
officials have estimated to us that every year the Yanukovych Family is
draining for its own purposes billions of dollars from government revenues.
What is more, the Family is also trespassing on the wealth of Yanukpovych’s oligarch
allies. The discontent that the Yanukovych Family’s greediness is arousing in
the general population, and the ill will that it is generating among the
oligarchs, suggest that this policy cannot be pursued successfully without
increasing repression.
Among some of
Yanukovych’s band of associates, several factors, possibly a fear of increased
repression, certainly, a growing resentment at the grasp of the Family, concern
that Ukraine may miss the
boat with Europe, and possibly growing popular
discontent, have in turn, the potential to lead them to break with the
President, destabilizing Ukrainian politics. In the recent parliamentary
elections, certain oligarchs appear to have sought to encourage a hung
parliament in order to force the Yanukovych administration to compromise with
the opposition so as to weaken his control and lead to economic reforms and
other policies acceptable to the West. The financing they have provided to
opposition parties may have gone beyond their traditional support for technical
or fictitious parties, a tactic originally designed to divide the opposition
vote. In addition, in the latter weeks of the campaign, some of the oligarch
television stations started to give a more balanced coverage to the various parties.
These gestures
of independence by some of the oligarchs, combined with other signs of tension
within Yanukovych’s erstwhile circle of allies, have given rise to the
suspicion among Yanukovych’s former partners that Yanukovych may be tempted to
do a deal with the Russians by agreeing to join the Russian dominated Eurasian
Customs Union in return for Russian help in re-establishing control over his
associates.
Yanukovych
would, however, according to one report, only contemplate a sellout to Russia if he had lost all hope of receiving
backing from the West, and especially from the United States.
There is
considerable evidence that the relationship between Yanukovych and Putin is
highly acrimonious. Yanukovych would likely only consider a surrender to Putin
as a remedy of last resort.
In return, we
see some signs that some in the EU are considering how the EU could regain
influence with the Yanukovych administration to as to persuade the President to
carry out genuine reforms. They wish to get out of the blind ally in which the
EU finds itself, in which no progress can be made on the Association and Free
Trade Agreement without the release of the political prisoners and free
elections. Because of these conditions, the EU now has effectively few levers
over Yanukovych.
The UWC might
therefore encourage the EU to show flexibility in its policy towards Ukraine.
Andrew Wilson,
a Senior Policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has
suggested looking for possibilities to split off from the Association Agreement
areas in which progress can be made and to go forward on bilateral co-operation
by member states.
As a
counterweight to agreeing to move ahead in some fields, Wilson has proposed that the EU countries
should refuse to provide visas to supporters of the Family suspected of
criminal activities or human rights violations, and should investigate for
malfeasance companies closely associated with the Family.
When we
consider the outcome of the elections, and the apparent aims of the President, what
lessons should we draw for Canadian and US
policy toward Ukraine?
We must avoid
the tendency to give up on Ukraine.
It is important that both countries should continue to be involved in Ukraine in
supporting Ukrainian independence, in promoting democratic and economic reforms
where possible, and in strengthening the civil society. We should maintain an
active aid policy. Furthermore, Canada
might co-ordinate with the EU its policy on concluding the Free Trade Agreement
with Ukraine.
The proposed Canada–Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, as one member of Yanukovych’s
team remarked, does not count for much by itself. In our opinion, in
co-ordination with the EU’s policy it however does matter.
As a means of
exerting pressure for good behaviour on the Yanukovych regime, in the absence
of many other levers, the West might also consider the idea of targeted
sanctions against certain members of President Yanukovych’s entourage. Our
impression in Ukraine
was that the possibility of targeted sanctions of any sort has, more than any
other measure, got supporters and members of the Yanukovych clan spooked. This
fear may account in part for the increased willingness of certain oligarchs to
reconsider their relationship with Yanukovych.
Canada might consider refusing visas to supporters of the Family suspected
of criminal activities or human rights violations. Canada should however, co-ordinate
such a policy with its allies. Otherwise, it would be open to retaliation. The United States has formally ruled out targeted
sanctions against Ukraine
at this stage. The United
States is, however, refusing visas to Ukrainians
suspected of gross criminal activities, The British have refused a visa to a
person suspected of human rights violations. Canada could also keep, in
conjunction with its allies, a close eye on the practices of companies
belonging to members of the family.
If the
political situation in Ukraine
continues on its downward course, the West should not wait until it is too late
before taking action. The United States
did impose targeted sanctions on certain Ukrainians after the second round of
the election of 2004, the round that precipitated the Orange
revolution. The parliamentary elections of 2012 approach the elections of 2004
in dirtiness.
Above all, we
must be prepared to be in Ukraine
for the long haul. Until now, our policy toward Ukraine
has been buttressed by the often unspoken assumption that we would help lead Ukraine by easy
stages to becoming a stable democratic country with a prosperous market
economy. In making this assumption we may have underestimated the difficulties
created for Ukraine
by its difficult history. Unlike the countries in Eastern Central Europe that
became independent at the same time, Ukraine had, at the moment of
independence, only been obliquely affected by the evolution of the Western
culture from authoritarianism to pluralism. Ukraine had little tradition of the
backbone of democracy, which is the separation of powers. The country had had
no previous experience as an independent state or, since the First World War,
as a market economy. It had few of the government structures needed to run a
state.
There are very
few European counties that have smoothly made the transition from dictatorship
to democracy. Most making the journey before the advent of the EU, have fallen
back at least once. Ukraine
has not had the benefit of an offer of EU membership, an offer that has eased
the way to democracy for so many other counties in eastern Central
Europe and the Balkans.
In contrast, Ukraine has
faced frequent Russian interference in its internal affairs and is now under
pressure to join not only the Eurasian Customs Union, but also the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). These structures would give Russia strong voice over the economies, the
finances, and the defence of the other members, and accord Russia the
right to intervene militarily to keep the other states in line.
An independent Ukraine free from Russian domination remains
important for both stability in Europe and the possibility of the West eventually
reaching an understanding with Russia.
The relationship between Russia
and Ukraine
is likely to remain difficult for the foreseeable future. Relations between
successor states often remain unsettled for a long period of time. Furthermore,
the Russian imperial tradition conceives of Ukraine
as being a part of Russia.
Should Russia succeed in re-establishing its hegemony
over Ukraine, it could
prolong the instability of the area, prevent the spread of democracy, divide
Europe, and, by offending our consciences, make it difficult for the West to
achieve reconciliation with Russia.
In view of
these factors, the West should remain engaged in the area. Canada especially should stay involved in Ukraine, if it wishes to contribute to stability
in Eastern Europe, and to help overcome the
division of the continent.
Very excited about this seminar coming up sponsored by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter: The Seduction of Propaganda and Mass Violence in Ukraine in Ukraine in the 20th and early 21st centuries.
