Assessing Democratic Politics in Ukraine

US-UA Working Group Yearly

Summit I:Providing Ukraine with Annual Report Card

June 20, 2013 Washington DC

Iryna Bekeshkina

Election assessment -2.5• Free, competitive, but

unfair;• Rather just in the

proportional segment;• Brutally falsified in the

majoritarian part

Parliamentary election-2012 in Ukraine was a step backwards in democratic development

Negative trends in elections-2012

• Change of electoral legislation on the eve on the election in the interest of the ruling party

• Dominance of the ruling party representatives in electoral commissions

• Unequal conditions for electoral campaign conduction for different parties and candidates

• Unequal access to mass media • Voters’ bribery• Falsification of votes in the single-mandate

districts• Involvement of state institutions – militia and

courts – in electoral fraud • Absence of punishment for those involved in

electoral fraud • Elections in 5 problematic single mandate

districts have not been settled yet

Positive trends- Increase of opposition support;- Consolidation of opposition forces;- Activation of the civil society;- Voters proved that money is not

enough;- Readiness of citizens to defend their

votes;- Obvious desire of the citizens for a

different kind of politics and politicians

But not only bad news

Respect for human rights assessment -2.0

• Political repressions of opposition• Establishment of authoritarian

hierarchy of power: degradation of parliament

• Total subordination of judiciary to executive

• Endemic and systematic nature of corruption

• Suppression of business, raider acquisition of property

• Limitation of electoral competition• Curtailment of rights on protest

actions

BUT • Lutsenko was released

Free Media Assessment – 2.50• Economic insufficiency of media • Pressure by media owners• Censorship • Journalists self-censorship• Media using as a tool of

manipulation • Closing of 2 ear TV-programmes • Raider acquisition of TVi-channel BUT Activation of journalists NGO

protecting rights of journalists (“Hence censorship!”)

Strong civil society assessment – 4.0

• Activation of civil society organizations • Creations of NGOs associations (“Chesno!”,

“For fair referendums”, Public Sociological Consortium etc.)

• Expanding of non-political protests • Increasing people confidence to civil

organizations • Some NGO’s leaders were elected to the

parliament • NGOs sometimes were successful in the

pressure on politicians and government

NGO Successful actions

According to the public opinion poll, 67% voters considered personal voting an important criteria of assessment of a given deputy. Only 22% dismissed this as an unimportant criteria .

“Batkivshchyna”, “UDAR” and “Svoboda” parties signed agreements with “Chesno” civic movement on personal voting in the future Verkhovna Rada.

NGO Successful actions

Relative majority of population – 45% ( 52% among the target group) – expressed negative attitude towards proposition to introduce entrance exams in addition to the present system of external independent evaluation during the admission campaign. 27% would have favored such change.

Common efforts of NGOs, experts, and

deputies allowed to prevent adoption of a bill on higher education developed by the Ministry of education which would have downgraded the role of external independent evaluation and created favorable conditions for proliferation of corruption in universities. Visibility of public opinion poll results played a major role in this success.

Total assessment of Democracy progress scale – 2.5

Ukraine at the crossroads:democracy or authoritarianism,

the East or the WestChoice-1

Parliamentary majority formation by pressing and bribing;

Repressions against opposition and civic leaders;

Limitation of human rights and freedoms;

Selective justice, disregarding the rule of law;

Construction of the Russian model of managed democracy;

Transformation of corruption as a bottom-up model;

Break-off the relations with the West and entering Custom Union with Russia

2015: Victor Yanukovych will be a winner of the unfair elections

Choice-2- Fair re-elections in the

problematic districts, punishments of all involved in the electoral violations;

- Redressing cases of selective justice and reforming of the judiciary;

- Stopping the limitation of human rights and freedoms, especially freedom of media;

- Real fighting corruption;- Signing the Association

Agreement at Vilnus Summit

- 2015: Who will win at the fair presidential elections?