Souris-Moose Mountain MP Ed Komarnicki had a front row seat for the recent controversial elections in Ukraine.
Komarnicki was part of the 500 strong Canadian delegation, which travelled to the eastern European country to monitor the Oct. 28 election. Komarnicki, who called the trip a great privilege, observed the opening and closing of an election poll and made unannounced visits to polls in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The election has been mired in controversy as there have been accusations of falsifying results that have led to calls for a recount in some areas of the country.
"I was quite impressed for the most part with how well the election process went on election day," he said in a release to the media. "Outside of one urgent request for us to report to local police in one polling station, we were not impeded in our access to the polling stations or to information requested. I understand that there were more significant complaints in Eastern and Southern Ukraine."
Komarnicki said the Canadian group also observed voters' lists, the number of ballots, locals going through the process of being identified on voters' lists, signing off on the voters' lists, providing passport identification, signing off on ballot counterfoils and proceeding to the ballot stations.
"In my view the process went fairly smoothly in the polling stations we observed during the day," he said. "We witnessed one irate voter when a polling station didn't open on time, and the vote count took exceptionally long as we were not able to leave the polling station until 5:35 a.m. the next day."
Komarnicki described the voting process in the Ukraine as somewhat complicated due to the fact the 450 deputies are elected in a mixed majoritarian - which is a proportional system where 225 deputies are elected in the first past the post system that is familiar to Canadians, and 225 proportional representatives seats are elected according to party lists.
"There are two ballots, one listing parties, and there are many, and another listing candidates, and there are also many. It is the parties that choose the candidates for the proportional seats, and voters don't get to vote for the candidates but rather for the party. Any party not receiving five per cent of the vote has its seats distributed amongst the other parties that did, proportional to the votes they received. Although this system is somewhat foreign to many of us, it is not to the Ukrainian population, who appeared quite engaged to me," Komarnicki said.
"There were however, a number of districts where the tabulation of results took extraordinarily long and in several district election commissions the tabulation was not completed days after the election."
Komarnicki added that he was troubled by some of the events leading up to the election and in the days after. Notably, the imprisonment of opposition figures Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko who were imprisoned during the election period, following trials that were criticized as unfair. Both are rivals of President Viktor Yanukovych.
"Neither Ms. Tymoshenko nor Mr. Lutsenko were permitted to register as a candidate for election and the head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly of which I was a part was not allowed to meet with Ms. Tymoshenko," Komarnicki said.
"As well, political parties had unequal access to private media coverage, the government seemingly targeted measures against media favourable to the opposition, administrative resources were used to assist the governing party, and campaign funding lacked transparency. Media coverage on state owned television was noted as being biased in favour of the ruling party, and there were also reported incidents of violence and intimidation of candidates and campaign workers."
Komarnicki feels the issues in Ukraine need to be dealt with in the future and he hopes over time that legislation will be introduced and passed to level the playing field for opposition candidates during the campaign. He added that there needs to be transparency regarding campaign finances and with the tabulation of election results.
"Hopefully everyone in the political process will take steps to advance democratic reforms and to ensure that the democratic voice of the Ukrainian people is heard. I realize it is a work in progress and that it may take a generation and likely more to bring it closer to where in my opinion it should be."
