Leading Western observers endorse Ukraine elections

The first round of the Ukrainian presidential
elections was competitive and citizens had the opportunity to freely express their
will, the OSCE PA Election Observing Mission reported in an Apr. 1 statement.
Fundamental freedoms were generally respected and candidates could campaign
freely, OSCE Special Coordinator Ilkka Kanerva told a joint press conference of
representatives of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the NATO Parliamentary
Assembly. Observers from these organizations assessed the elections were
positive overall and violations established during the day of voting did not in
general influence the result of the vote, Kanerva said.

These organizations
also cited violations of election norms, including Prosecutor General Yuriy
Lutsenko’s open support for President Poroshenko, “which placed under doubt the
independence of his department,” according to their report. They also pointed
out that three criminal investigations were initiated after the candidates
announced their election campaign. Meanwhile,  the president used the
meetings of his nationwide Regional Development Council network to campaign for
re-election, also doing so during his working visits.

In their turn, the G7 ambassadors issued a statement
on Apr. 1 welcoming the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary conclusions, agreeing that the
election was competitive and held in a generally peaceful and secure
atmosphere. “Election day was assessed positively overall and paves the way to
the second round,” the statement said. “On the basis of the OSCE/ODIHR
findings, G7
ambassadors urge candidates and their teams to implement to relevant law in
good faith in the run-up to and during the second round of presidential
elections.”

The first-round of voting met democratic standards and
occurred in a calm environment, Internal Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov told a
political talk show on Apr. 1. “The advantage of democracy is that it works for
the long term,” he said. “First we select nationally our representatives, after
which we get a result, even if at some moment our candidate that we favor
didn’t win.” Avakov is widely recognized to have aligned himself with candidate
Yulia Tymoshenko, who has alleged rigged exit polls and has claimed to have
finished in second place. Avakov didn’t repeat these claims.

Nonetheless, the campaign of Volodymyr Zelenskiy
announced that its vote tally, involving a review of protocols parallel with
the official count, has revealed a discrepancy of 1-2% in certain regions as
compared to the results of the Central Election Commission. “For some reason,
the biggest discrepancy is in the Vinnytsia region” said campaign coordinator
Oleksandr Korniyenko, referring to President Poroshenko’s stronghold. In his
turn, fourth-place finisher Yuriy Boyko alleged vote manipulations in the
Donetsk region, stating his campaign reported 100 serious violations to the
police that include forgeries of protocols. Poroshenko’s vote result in the
region was truly about 8%, not 12.59% as reported in the official tally, Boyko
said, adding that his result was at least 38%, not 36.46% in the official
results. 

Zenon Zawada: It’s a
positive achievement for the Poroshenko administration and the Internal Affairs
Ministry led by Arsen Avakov to have arranged for peaceful and organized
elections. At the same time, it’s been acknowledged by Ukraine’s leading
election monitoring organization, Opora, that the Poroshenko administration
heavily employed state resources, which could have influenced the vote result.
But as we’ve noted, Western election observers don’t have the resources to
investigate the effect of government policies on elections, nor the authority
to determine whether they violated election law.

We believe it’s possible that votes for both
Zelenskiy and Boyko were steered towards other candidates, as they have
claimed. However, such violations weren’t large enough to affect the final
result. We also believe that an acceptable first round of elections won’t
guarantee a clean second-round runoff, especially when the president will be
desperate to remain in power. Once again, rather than relying on manipulations
on the day of the runoff, we expect the Poroshenko administration’s alleged
vote-buying network will be active. Pressure will also be applied to state
workers, particularly the military, to cast votes for the president.