Violation during election campaign not to make much difference to election returns in Ukraine if vote count done well, say ISEC observes
Kyiv, October 27 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Election Monitoring Mission of the International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) accredited for the parliamentary elections in Ukraine 2012 (the Netherlands) has said that registered violations during the monitoring of the election campaign in Ukraine will not make much difference to the election returns if the operation of election commissions of all levels is organized well on the Election Day and during the vote count.
"The mission says that despite active struggle between party headquarters during the electoral process a friendly atmosphere in society was seen, without manifestations of extra intolerance by confronting sides. The mission expressed hope that the election day and election count will be held in the country within the legal framework without the aggravation of the situation, and the election itself will meet international standards," Alexander Tsinker, ICES president, Knesset member of XV convocation, said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Friday.
The observers positively assessed struggling between parties and pointed at the large number of fraud attempts by party headquarters in single-member constituencies.
"According to reports from various regions, the most popular fraud is attempts of direct or indirect bribery of voters. Giving negative assessments to attempts of bribery, the mission observers believe that the efficiency of this political step is very low. It's difficult to backtrace how each voter voted and it is silly to hope that the votes of Ukrainians could be easily bought," reads a second interim report of the mission for the period form September 26 to October 25, 2012.
Tsinker paid attention to the facts of using administrative resource, especially at the local level, unsettled issues of the logical formation of election commissions and the slow reaction to claims of citizens.
"The mission expressed perplex at the use of the if-the-winner-is-not-me-the-election-fraud-took-place principle by some election process participants. Such statements could be considered as bad PR and the pressure on voters and election commission members. The mission again calls on all of the candidates and their headquarters to refrain from actions or statements that could cause further escalation of the already tense situation in society. The final evaluation and conclusions on the democratic nature of the parliamentary elections are to be made only upon completion of the election process," the ICES said.
"Recently one can say in advance that the election will be illegal, invalid or undemocratic towards not only Ukraine, but Georgia, Belarus and Moldova. I think that this affect the development of democracies in these counties. The opposition and various persons not involved in the process issue such statements. They press on voters and say that they should not go to vote, as the election will be illegal. I think that this is silly and unfair," Laszlo Kemeny, Professor of Political Sciences and Advisor to the Parliamentary Group of the Hungarian Socialist Party, said.
The observers point to a broad and diverse presentation of the election campaign in Ukrainian media reports. They believe that there is equality in a combined mentioning of key participants of the election process by mass media.
The mission believe that despite various remarks against the CEC, the commission formed from representatives of various political forces, is conducting an independent policy, observing the schedules and stages of the election process in line with the election law.
ICES representatives said that web cameras in polling stations are ready to operate and they expressed hope that their use during voting and counting of votes will allow significantly reducing fraud attempts and increasing observers’ control over the events in the polling stations.
The mission formed 10 groups of short-term observes who went to Kyiv city, Kyiv region, Crimea, Lviv, Zakarpattia, Ternopil, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Luhansk and Kherson regions.
The ISEC mission will evaluate the level of freedom, honesty and transparency of the election process in Ukraine. The preliminary report on the democratic nature of the parliamentary election in Ukraine will be presented by the observers at 1100 am on October 29, 2012.