On July 5, the Civic Network OPORA made a presentation of its third monthly long-term observation report. The report focuses on incidents of administrative resource abuse, including officials conducting campaigns or engaging in pre-election campaign activities. OPORA presented recent data on election campaigning and new forms of voter bribery used before the official launch of the campaign.
According to Oleksander Neberykut, OPORA’s campaign observation expert, during the last three months OPORA long-term observers and independent media have documented dangerous trends that confirmed a real danger that some potential candidates could abuse administrative resources to decrease the level of political competition in the country. This can seriously violate the European principle of equal opportunities for all parties and candidates and question the fairness of the upcoming elections among Ukrainian citizens and members of the international community.
The use of an official position during political activities violates Article 4 of the Ukraine’s political party law. This legislation prohibits authorities, local governments and officials from privileging some political parties and from supporting some parties over others except for specific cases outlined in the legislation.
State authorities should refrain from demonstrating their personal political views and attitudes towards political forces, parties and coalitions, so it will not interfere with their official duties. This is also outlined in Decree #214 of the Main State Service Department dated August 4, 2010, “On general rules of state officials’ conduct”.
A trend of the parliamentary pre-election campaign in Ukraine is an attempt of certain political forces and potential candidates to engage employees of state-funded organizations in election activities. Employment of new temporary social workers by national and local authorities has become the most known. An official reason for employing more social workers and increasing funding for social services is a necessity to strengthen social initiatives of the president and the national government. According to Sergiy Tigipko, Ukraine’s vice prime-minister, 12,000 temporary social workers will be trained in Ukraine. Salaries of the new social workers will be higher (approximately 1,000 UAH) than those of similar employees of social services. The largest number of social workers’ positions has been created in Poltava oblast (908); the smallest in Sevastopol (15 people). Implementation of this decision has led to serious political conflicts, since there is a risk of engaging temporary social workers in election campaigns of pro-government candidates. For instance, the Ternopil Oblast Council did not support the reallocation of 12 million hryvna of state subsidies to create 400 temporary social worker positions. Councilmembers decided to verify the validity of this initiative and proposed to implement this project after the October elections. In Sumy oblast, OPORA observers documented an incident in which a social worker tried to find out the political views of a 93 year old pensioner. The pensioner also was informed by the social worker that she could receive a digital television set with the support of authorities.
In Volyn oblast, OPORA representatives were informed by local citizens about “compulsory” recruitment of budget organization employees to support the election campaign of one of the candidates. Mr. Igor Palytsia, a local philanthropist and MP, recruited local teachers for election campaigning through high school directors.
Olga Aivazovska, OPORA’s elections programs coordinator, drew attention to the fact that potential candidates, especially incumbent MPs, claim that they lobby the interests of specific election districts using resources from the State Budget of Ukraine. Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn set a precedent in this regard. Speaker Lytvyn (People’s party of Ukraine) and his first deputy, Adam Martynyuk (Communist Party of Ukraine), actively use their official status during work visits. For example, Mr. Martynyuk claims that he “lobbied” for the allocation of 10,8 million hryvna by the Cabinet of Ministers for social and economic needs of the Kamin’-Kashirsky and Kivertsivsky election districts (Volyn oblast). The use of this election strategy by senior parliament officials encourages the unlimited abuse of state administrative resources by other MPs and officials.
Mrs. Aivazovska also noted that representatives of “Svoboda” All-Ukrainian Union who occupy senior positions in the Western regions of Ukraine have also abused their official status to support personal election campaigns. For example, ad-hoc allocation of funding for repairs of a damaged road in Mostytsky district by Oleg Pankevych, head of the Lviv Oblast Council, has been presented as a success of his political party.
Potential candidates use professional holidays to boost their electoral popularity. For example, in Poltava oblast, potential candidates Oleksandr Zaluzhny and Volodymyr Makara created a civic union “Our Home – Poltava”, which donated to medical workers 10 cars, two ambulances, ten apartments in Poltava, money and award certificates to purchase household equipment. Medical establishments have received award certificates that guarantee the renovation of their premises and the procurement of medical and office equipment.
OPORA has documented frequent incidents in which state officials made public statements that clearly show their attitude toward different political forces. Open violation of official standards of conduct by officials undermines equal opportunities for all political parties.
On July 4, the Verkhovna Rada amended the State budget to allocate funds to the CEC to allocate 993,6 million hryvna to equip polling stations with video surveillance systems. OPORA representatives think it would be more reasonable to use video cameras during meetings of district election commissions, in particular during vote tabulation According to OPORA, video cameras should be installed not only in meeting rooms of district election commissions, but also in adjacent corridors. This will provide an opportunity to document potential violations such as stamps being taken from district election commissions, blank protocols or filling in protocols with “revised voting results.” It is also important to have audio and video recording of each protocol being read by election commission members and stenography of important meetings conducted by district election commissions.
The Civic Network OPORA is a non-governmental, non-partisan and financially independent all-Ukrainian network of civic activists. We united to mobilize public participation in political processes through the development and implementation of models that can be used by citizens to influence authorities and local governments.