Ukraine has the best electoral legislation! So what?

On July 8, 2003, in the city of Lutsk, in the premises of the educational and methodological center of trade unions, a round table was held on the topic: "Electoral Legislation in Ukraine. Ukrainian Experience and International Practice." The organizer of this event was the Volyn branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine. The occasion for this event was the publication of the book "Electoral Legislation: Ukrainian Practice, International Experience and Ways of Reform," which became a kind of summary of a scientific study conducted by experts in Kyiv. This refers to an authorial collective numbering 18 people who, thanks to a grant provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the "Elections and Political Processes" Project in accordance with a contract with Development Associates, Inc., worked on identifying the main problems of Ukrainian electoral legislation, analyzing international legal norms and decisions of international organizations regarding the establishment of rules for conducting the electoral process, comparative analysis of the experience of legal support for the organization of elections in foreign countries, and identifying models for resolving problematic issues of the electoral process...

The authors of the idea on the Ukrainian side were the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, the Laboratory of Legislative Initiatives, and the International Institute for Comparative Analysis. As we can see, this is a serious company, considering also that all the above-mentioned institutions have done and are doing a great deal for the analysis of Ukraine's electoral legislation (an example being at least the Electoral Code), and also take an active part during election campaigns.

All the more interesting was the event because the authors of the book, the experts who worked on this study, took part in it: Yevhen Radchenko — first deputy head of the Board of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine and at the same time editor of this publication, and Oleksiy Kordun, editor-in-chief of the journal "Liudyna i Polityka" (Man and Politics). The moderator of the round table was the head of the Volyn branch of the CVU, Oleksandr Stirko. Local specialists were invited to the work of the round table, in particular representatives of political parties of Volyn, representatives of government bodies, former members of election commissions, political science lecturers, and journalists. In a word, all those who during elections directly dealt with electoral legislation and know the problems and obstacles that stood in the way of its application.

First, "as a warm-up," Yevhen Radchenko took the floor, who defined the main tasks that the researchers set for themselves and briefly spoke about the main points of the publication. In particular, Mr. Yevhen said that the authors of the study, having analyzed international election standards using the example of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, came to the conclusion that Ukrainian electoral legislation is one of the best in Eastern Europe and in the CIS area. After all, it contains many technical procedures that allow, theoretically, elections to be conducted at a high level. The Kyiv guest also noted the differences that exist in the electoral legislation of our neighboring countries. A discrepancy between our legislation and so-called international standards is the low status of public organizations during elections and significant restrictions on their participation in this process. After all, according to the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting, public organizations are an integral element of the electoral process in a democratic country. Unfortunately, this point is not spelled out in Ukrainian legislation. A difference between Ukraine's election laws and foreign ones is the point on the financing of election campaigns. Thus, according to the results of the study, in most countries political parties are financed from the state budget. Also, one of the international standards is a provision that foresees the possibility for legal entities to make contributions to the election funds of candidates or parties, which is not provided for in our law.

Yevhen Radchenko also dwelt in more detail on the procedural aspects of conducting elections that are insufficiently spelled out in Ukrainian legislation and therefore create obstacles to free and fair elections. These include, in particular, the issue of forming election commissions, the issue of the existence of a voter register, which in Europe is a common phenomenon and which Ukraine somehow cannot transition to, and the problems that arise during the conduct of pre-election campaigning. As for the latter, the authors of the study were the second, after the Razumkov Centre, to attempt to give a clear definition of the concepts of "pre-election campaigning" and "political advertising," the absence of which created a mass of unpleasantness during the recent elections for both journalists and the politicians themselves. Mr. Yevhen briefly described the results of the study on such issues as the use of administrative resources and legal liability for it, challenging decisions of commissions, and the political and legal culture of voters.

But the most important, at least in the opinion of the author of the article, was the conclusion that the difference between Ukrainian and European experience in conducting elections lies, first of all, in the application of electoral legislation in practice. This is where things are not all right in Ukraine. And the task of all conscious and active citizens should be, first of all, compliance with the laws. Otherwise, the most democratic provisions and principles will be empty and will in no way influence the development of our state.

At the end of his speech, Yevhen Radchenko noted that one of the tasks of this study is the development of recommendations for the implementation of certain of the most successful mechanisms from the legislative regulation of other countries for application in Ukrainian electoral practice. After all, "thanks to minor procedural changes in legislation, the electoral process in Ukraine can be significantly improved."

Oleksiy Kordun continued the description of this "abstract review," as the authors modestly called their book. In the opinion of the editor-in-chief of the journal "Liudyna i Polityka," the work of their scientific collective is a "unique study not only for Ukraine but also for the entire post-socialist and post-Soviet region." What prompted the authors of the study to work in this direction was, first of all, the large number of statements by both foreign researchers and Ukrainian politicians that Ukraine lacks international standards, in particular regarding the conduct of elections. That is precisely why the researchers undertook the analysis of international and foreign documents related to electoral processes. In Mr. Oleksiy's opinion, the very term "international standards" is a complex of ideas, principles, and generalizations that do not answer the question of which mechanisms should be applied so that elections are fair and transparent, and these very concepts are very vague.

He also dwelt on the question of choosing the subject of the study. He explained the choice of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe primarily by the similarity of historical past, basic opportunities for development, and available resources. Compared to the countries of Western Europe, the experience of our near neighbors, whose mentality is similar (after all, brother Slavs — Auth.), may be useful to us in the matter of improving electoral procedures. The explanation here is simple — they in their time, and we today, went through a similar period of formation of electoral systems, made similar miscalculations and mistakes. So their experience is appropriate for us and, most importantly, understandable.

According to Oleksiy Kordun, the researchers before starting their work identified 10 problem points in Ukrainian electoral legislation, on solving which they worked. Therefore it is not surprising that in the study little space is devoted to questions of the functioning of parties during elections and other painful issues. After all, it is clear that it is impossible to encompass the unencompassable. The next stage of the study consisted in identifying models for solving these problems and creating recommendations on how they can be applied in Ukraine.

Toward the end of his speech, Mr. Oleksiy made an interesting conclusion. It turns out that we are too demanding of ourselves and of our electoral legislation. He once again repeated the opinion that Ukrainian electoral legislation corresponds to international standards, and in this matter we are "ahead of the entire planet." Mr. Oleksiy also noted that when using international experience, Ukrainian realities must be taken into account, in particular territory, population size, and infrastructure. After all, how can one blindly copy the experience of a European country in which, say, only 25 thousand voters live in one district, which is approximately equivalent to a Ukrainian district for a regional council.

Such was the beginning of the round table. Then the discussion moved to "the masses" and a discussion began of both the realities of Ukrainian elections and the essence of the study itself. In particular, interesting were the opinions expressed by political scientists, lecturers of Volyn State University — Taras Litkovets, Viktor Penko, Valentyn Malynovsky, and by politicians who know elections in Ukraine not from hearsay — regional council deputy Volodymyr Banada (NRU), former people's deputy Rostyslav Chapyuk (SPU), and Lutsk city council deputy Viktor Shostak (UNP). Nina Heorhiivna Benesko, the many-year head of the Lutsk territorial election commission, also took part in the discussion of the topic of the meeting, who, having the opportunity to compare elections in the city of Lutsk over 15 (!!!) years in the position of head, drew attention to the difficulties faced by election commission workers due to imperfect formulation in legislation of certain procedures during elections. Young political science students also shared their impressions and thoughts regarding participation in elections. Thus, Dmytro Tsizh, who during the 2002 elections was a member of the regional territorial election commission, spoke about some difficulties that the commission had to encounter during local elections.

When summing up, everyone agreed that the study is very useful and will undoubtedly be interesting and will come in handy for all those involved in the creation and implementation of electoral legislation in Ukraine. And the researchers themselves noted that they had gleaned many interesting ideas from the meeting that may subsequently find their embodiment in other studies.

P.S. Summing up the round table, in which the author of the article also participated, I would like to also tell, using the example of elections in Scotland, which international standards are used "beyond the Bug." As Yevhen Radchenko, who had the opportunity to observe the elections to the local parliament of Scotland, recounted, the procedure for counting votes there is completely different from ours. So, after the completion of voting, at each polling station the ballot boxes with ballots are sealed and — would you believe it — are transported to Edinburgh, where such boxes from all over the country are stacked in a large hall, and specially trained "counters" conduct the counting of votes. Imagine! Behind their backs stand several observers (at least 2 behind each "counter") plus a couple more members of election commissions. In addition, throughout the hall stand several dozen law enforcement officers who react instantly at the slightest violation or attempt to count something wrong. As the Scots themselves say: "Democracy is democracy, but during elections — strict dictatorship." (I hope the nice Scots won't be offended if the interpretation came out not entirely literal?) Such are they — international standards.