Ukraine

Kalyna Kardash, Kyiv

On 25 October nation-wide local elections were held in Ukraine.  These elections saw over 350,000 candidates running for over 168,450 positions in municipal, district, and regional councils.  Governing the elections was a highly complex, much-criticized electoral law adopted in mid-July.  Runoff mayoral elections and re-run elections for certain councilor seats were held three weeks later, on 15 November.

According to the new local election law, a candidate had to be included in a party list in order to be able to run.  However, to be elected, the party had to meet the five percent threshold, which critics argued hindered national minority representation as this threshold would be difficult for any national minority-based party to meet.  The election law that was adopted was also taken from a draft that was not subject to public consultation.

The law called for a top-down structure within parties, while failing to fully mandate open-list voting.  This meant that candidates for district, city, and regional councils were chosen by party leadership, not voters.  In other words, while voters were able to vote for the party of their preference, it was the party itself that ultimately decided who from their list would represent respective ridings.  And these decisions were made based off of the percentage of votes each candidate earned in their assigned district.  Simple, right?

The election law was considered by many to have been purposely crafted as such in order to contain the competitive potential of opposition parties and to keep the current status quo.  Those currently in power in Ukraine’s parliament were well aware of rising voter dissatisfaction, as was reflected by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s party, National Front, completely bowing out from participation in these elections.  Yatsenyuk and his party’s approval ratings currently hover around 1 percent.

The election had three electoral systems functioning at once.  This, in addition to the overly complicated nature of the electoral law, resulted in a poor understanding of how the election system worked, and high levels of confusion amongst the general population and election officials alike. 

Work was further complicated for precinct electoral commissions (PECs, the local commission in charge of a polling station) by a lack of technology and standardized software to aid in calculating and processing results.  This meant that each PEC and TEC (territorial election commission) had to manually determine the parties who reached the five percent threshold and other necessary calculations such as candidate’s ratings, leaving much (avoidable) room for error.

Apart from issues with the election law, there were also 1.6 million officially registered Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in the country who were not able to vote in this election because they were still registered at addresses in the regions they were forced to flee.  In order to be able to vote IDPs would have had to change their address to their current location, but this would have meant that they would lose their IDP benefits, which is something many were not willing to do.

Such challenges highlighted the difficult security, humanitarian, and economic situation Ukraine finds itself in today.  The upshot of this reality was that national topics, such as the war in the east, conscription, and the quickly rising cost of living, were very much at the forefront of election issues, even though those seeking office had little to no control over such questions. 

Effects of the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine were also felt at certain polling stations, where instead of the mandatory two police officers, only one was present.  “Most guys are needed at the front right now, they have been mobilized,” said one Ministry of the Interior officer guarding the safe containing election ballots at a polling station in the Poltava region, himself having returned from the front a few months ago.

In terms of the results of the 25 October election, no major gains were made by the opposition, Yulia Tymoshenko’s Batkivschyna party was not able to make significant headway, and former Yanukovych allies triumphed in several key races in the south and eastern regions of Ukraine.  Many political commentators see this as a sign of both the continuing power of oligarchs and brewing disillusionment with post-Maidan leaders.  At the same time, the right wing Svoboda party gained more seats than in previous years, an indication that a not-so-insignificant portion of the population remains discontent with those in power and is seeking radical change.

In the south and east of the country, including the Kyiv controlled areas of Donbas where elections were able to take place, a rather surprising diversity of winning candidates and parties took shape.  While this development may initially come off as positive, analysts have presented the outcome as rather a result of disenchanted voters and oligarchic interests pressing forward.  For one, they note, the results demonstrate that prominent oligarchs have simply divided the country according to their interests and power bases.  And although pro-Western parties fared better than expected in the country’s southeast, this can be attributed to the fact that the former ruling Party of Regions split up into different parties – the biggest of which is the Opposition Bloc – and in effect has split its voters.  In other instances, such as in Odesa, embittered voters voted in protest, electing a Star Wars character named Emperor Palpatine.

According to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights’ (ODIHR) preliminary report, “The elections were competitive, well organized overall and the campaign generally showed respect for the democratic process,” but added that “the complexity of the legal framework, the dominance of powerful economic groups over the electoral process, and the fact that virtually all campaign coverage in the media was paid for, underscore the need for continued reform.”  The report also noted that “additional efforts are needed to further enhance the integrity of and public confidence in the electoral process.”  Acknowledging the difficult circumstances under which the vote was held, it went on to state that “the elections took place in challenging political, economic, humanitarian and security environment, and against the backdrop of a constitutional reform process aiming at decentralization.”

With potential decentralization looming in the near future, these elections may have more significance than some attribute to them.  If the law on decentralization is passed in the Verkhovna Rada this December, the parties elected to the local and regional councils will acquire more power, and thereby more influence.  Whether this will be a positive or negative development is yet to be seen.

Despite the potential implications of these elections, voter turnout for the October 25 elections was 46 percent, which, put into perspective is two percentage points lower than the turnout for the last local elections.

For the November 15 runoff mayoral elections, as well as re-run elections for 617 councilors and 20 mayors in different villages and settlements, turnout was lower at 34 percent.  These elections took place in 29 cities with populations greater than 90,000 and where mayoral candidates obtained less than 50 percent of the vote on 25 October.  Kharkiv, Odesa, and Ternopil were the only major cities where mayoral elections saw first-round victories.  In all these cities the incumbents won. 

Local elections scheduled for 25 October did not take place in Mariupol or Krasnoarmiisk (both in the Donetsk oblast), and were rescheduled for 29 November according to a law adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament on 10 November.

Observations made by the OSCE/ODIHR for the second round of voting largely coincided with those made on 25 October.  A primary concern cited in both preliminary reports was business interests influencing the process in most contests, with many candidates focusing their efforts more on local coalition building rather than on reaching out to voters. 

Preparations for the second round were notably affected by the protracted tabulation process of the 25 October election results - which went beyond the legal deadlines - and high turnover of PEC members.  Distrust of some stakeholders in the election administration were fostered by problems with the tabulation process and the fact that election results were not provided to the public by the Central Election Commission in a comprehensive or timely manner.

Prior to the November 15 runoff elections “frequent and late replacements of Territorial Election Commission (TEC) members raised serious concerns regarding their independence,” and a “lack of confidence in the election administration and the deficient legal framework were at the root of most problems encountered during these elections, highlighting the need for an inclusive reform.”  However, as in their preliminary report for the first round, the OSCE/ODIHR preliminary report after the second round stressed that “dedicated and capable polling station staff organized voting and counting in a commendable manner.”

OSCE/ODIHR observers also noted that the newly-introduced proportional “open list” system “revealed a distortion in the representative local communities.”  In effect, the most popular candidates were not elected in some districts, with candidates who came in second and third obtaining seats instead.  Such outcomes raised concerns over whether the electoral system accurately reflects the will of the voters.

According to insiders, given the complicated nature and negative assessments of the laws governing these elections, it is unlikely that their use will be repeated.  It also remains to be seen whether or not elections will proceed in Mariupol and Krasnoarmiisk on 29 November.  Perhaps the most crucial development to watch for, however, is whether or not the hotly-debated decentralization law will be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada by year’s end, and how this will affect the ruling power of regional and municipal governments.  In the meantime, most suspect, newly-formed local governments will begin to operate as ‘business as usual.’