Panel discussion on elections in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine

Brussels, June 6 2012

The aim of this workshop on elections was to closely examine the electoral process in four EaP countries: Armenia, where the elections have already taken place, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine, where the elections are planned for the fall of 2012.

Krzysztof Bobinski from Unia&Polska, Poland, chaired the discussion.

Holly Ruthrauff from Election Reform International Services, United Kingdom, delivered an overview of the electoral processes in the EaP countries. According to her, a focus on elections draws the attention of the population to the situation in the media, on issues of governance, fairness and democracy. While all elections represent opportunities, judging by her experience, Ms Ruthrauff believes that in non-competitive elections observers are not able to influence the situation. The question she raised was why then bother observing. Her answer is that if observers detect how the fraud was committed, it can be proven that the incumbent government lacks legitimacy. This in turn will impact on people’s opinions. Recommendations prepared by the team of international observers after the elections are never considered unless there is a political will. Holly Ruthrauff believes that international observers should listen more to the domestic observer groups and local Civil Society groups. In order to achieve this, they should meet during the needs assessment missions, send reports regularly, and in this way gain credibility. She also noted that statements prepared by the EP PA, ODIHR and CoE PA should be harmonised and parliamentarians accountable for the reports they produce.

The following speaker, Varuzhan Hoktanyan from Transparency International described the electoral situation in Armenia. Since 1995 there has been no change in the government, which has consolidated into a one party system. During the most recent parliamentary elections on 6 May 2012 soft violations prevailed. This means that there was less ballot stuffing, beating of observers and the voting process was much more civilized. This was due to the strong influence of international observers and standards. However, soft violations – such as misuse of administrative resources – are hard to detect. The electoral campaign was conducted in a competitive manner but financial resources available to the various candidates were very different. There is a clear convergence of economic and political elites. Therefore, the expert concluded that there is “no good news about these elections”.

Vasil Sankovich from the Belarusian Helsinki Committee spoke of the situation in Belarus. He described the political situation, stressing the detention of human rights activists and the introduced changes to the law. The election monitoring campaign in Belarus was launched before the upcoming parliamentary election in September 2012. While changes/improvements to the electoral code were declared, they are of ‘cosmetic’ nature and do not promise any desirable changes.

Nina Khatiskatsi from Transparency International, Georgia, described the pre-election environment in Georgia. Certain constitutional changes have been made. However, the process of amending the election legislation was not very transparent, while many legal problems remain. Active election campaigns are already in place for the last 2-3 months. The evident problems are the abuse of administrative resources and the existence of polarized media. To improve the situation, punishment for electoral violations should be in force and there should not be any selective justice. Ms Khatiskatsi also believes that the role of international observers is very important. But in order to be efficient, EOMs should be deployed well before the election day. She also suggested to create an election observation sub-group within the framework of WG1.

Igor Kohut, EaP CSF Steering Committee member representing Ukraine, focused on the role of the civil society in the electoral process. Ukrainian CSOs are well-prepared and qualified and Mr Kohut considers international observation to be very important. As Ms Khatiskatsi, he thinks that ODIHR missions should be deployed earlier. NGOs are involved in the current election campaign through Civil Consortium for electoral initiatives. The civic movement ‘Chesno’ has also been organised. The organisation will be in charge of conducting independent exit-polls. Among the existing challenges identified by Mr Kohut, is pre-campaign silence, low quality of political parties, usage of administrative resources, and direct as well as indirect vote-buying.

The common conclusion of the workshop was that domestic election observation never has immediate results and international election observation should start much earlier than it does at the moment. The participants also supported the idea of creation of election observation sub-group within the framework of WG1.