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Kategorie: Pressemitteilungen

Erstellt: 28. November 2013

Am 28.-29.11.2013 – während des dritten Eastern Partnership Summits in Vilnius – wurde die Unterzeichnung des Assoziierungsabkommens zwischen der Ukraine und der EU geplant. Mit der Assoziierung hat das Volk die Hoffnung auf die europäische Entwicklung des Landes verbunden.

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Kategorie: Pressemitteilungen

Erstellt: 18. September 2013

68 Jahre nach Kriegsende scheint sich in Deutschland ein neues Selbstbewusstsein zu entwickeln, welches die nationalen Interessen des Landes zunehmend in den Mittelpunkt stellt. Dies ist sicherlich ein legitimer und natürlicher Vorgang. Doch was bedeutet es, wenn die verhältnismäßig junge, konservative Partei „Alternative für Deutschland“ davon spricht, sich auf Bismarck zu besinnen und Russland auf Kosten der Staaten, die dem jahrzehnte-, teilweise jahrhundertelangen Würgegriff des großen Bären ausgesetzt waren, zu stützen.

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Kategorie: Mitteilungen des UWC

Erstellt: 05. November 2012

UKRAINIAN WORLD CONGRESS observer mission Identifies Falsified Results ON CEC Web Site and Expresses GRAVE Concern over Disregard for Rule of Law during the election Count

 

Kyiv, Ukraine  – The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) International Election Observer Mission (UWC IEOM) continues to observe serious civil unrest resulting from the manipulation of the tabulation process and falsification of election results in several District Election Commissions (DECs).  The significant delay in the vote tabulations and the substantive discrepancy between official protocols and results posted on the Central Election Commission (CEC) website bring into question the veracity of the election results in many DECs.  The UWC IEOM calls for an immediate review of all Precinct Electoral Commission (PEC) protocols in relation to the posted results on the CEC web site. 

After seven days of counting, many DECs have still not concluded their vote tabulation.  Furthermore, there have been a number of DECs where the results posted by the CEC do no correlate with the protocols received from the PECs.  This has led to widespread civil unrest and conflict.  The UWC IEOM is deeply concerned with the continued violence and electoral fraud being monitored at many DECs in the areas of Kyiv, Kyiv Oblast, Vinnytsia, Mykolayiv and Odesa.  UWC observers have been monitoring the allegations of illegal acts committed by local government administrations to over-ride election results, as well as the questionable intervention by courts. 

According to reports, on Tuesday, October 30, at DEC No. 132 (Mykolayivska oblast), the CEC initially posted a victory for United Opposition candidate Arkadiy Kornatskyj by more than 4,000 votes.  Later that evening the results changed on the CEC web site showing that Party of Regions candidate Vitaliy Traviyanko won by a slim margin of 232 (0.3%) votes, which resulted in mass protests outside the DEC (http://nikvesti.com/articles/36300). In response to these protests, the Mykolayiv Oblast Administrative Court decided to remove all of the ballots from the DEC and bring them to the court for recount.  The Ministry of Interior Affairs (MIA) special forces were brought in to enforce the court order and reportedly stormed the DEC on Friday, November 2, seized the voters’ ballots and seal of the electoral commission, and abducted the DEC Chairman (http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2012/11/2/6976538/).

At a number of other DECs, UWC IEOM observers witnessed significant discrepancies between the results for the single mandate elections provided in the official protocols from the PECs and the results reported on the CEC official web site.  The UWC IEOM observers photographed official protocols signed by PEC commission members and stamped with the official PEC seal and compared these with the results reported on the CEC website.  An example of such discrepancies is illustrated by DEC No. 90 (Bila Tserkva, Kyiv Oblast) in the table below.

 

 

 

The CEC site posted that Vitaliy Chudnovsky (Independent) won by 322 votes over Oleksandr Marchenko (Svoboda).  Taking into account only 10 of the disputed PEC protocols, UWC IEOM observers noted that 720 votes were incorrectly reallocated to Vitaliy Chudnovsky by taking 700 votes from the third place candidate Roman Hryhoryshyn (UDAR) and 20 votes from candidate Oleksandr Linevych (see Table #1 - DEC No. 90 above).  Investigation of all PEC protocols in DEC No. 90 may result in a more significant variation. Based, however, on the 10 PECs reviewed by UWC observers, Oleksandr Marchenko (Svoboda) should have won by 392 votes.  According to information filed in a Kyiv court, there is a claim that 1,792 votes were fraudulently added to Vitaliy Chudnovsky at the expense of other candidates.  Provided these are substantiated, it would lead to a victory for Oleksandr Marchenko by 1,407 votes.

It is reasonable to conclude that these discrepancies are not simple clerical errors, but systematic falsifications occurring at DEC No. 90, among others, whereby votes were reallocated from multiple candidates to another single candidate at the time the DEC commission members entered the results into the CEC database.  It is important to note that election observers are not permitted to monitor the data entry process of the official PEC protocols into the CEC computers at any of the DECs.

The court proceedings at the Kyiv District Administrative Court in relation to DEC No. 90 were monitored by UWC IEOM observers as well as international observers from a number of other organizations.  The UWC IEOM observers confirm the reports filed by journalists asserting that the building was overrun with intimidating young men with shaved heads (http://www.pravda.com.ua/articles/2012/11/2/6976500/).  Mr. Marchenko and his legal team submitted a significant amount of documentary evidence, including official PEC protocols, affidavits signed by PEC commission members confirming that the protocols submitted were the only ones signed, eyewitness accounts from a number of DEC commission members, audio and video evidence of DEC leadership reading the final vote tally for PECs that corresponds with the official PEC protocols but does not correspond with the vote tallies reported per the CEC website.  In addition, PEC protocols submitted by the DEC No. 90 defense team that corresponded to the results reported on the CEC website were numbered in an exact, unbroken sequence suggesting that they were from one package of protocols yet it was claimed that these were the final protocols that were prepared and submitted by nearly 70 different PECs.  Despite this overwhelming evidence in favor of Mr. Marchenko, the Kyiv District Administrative Court ruled, in the early hours of November 3, in the presence of UWC EIOM observers and other international observers, that the evidence submitted by Mr. Marchenko was insufficient for the Court to require DEC No. 90 to re-check the tabulation of the vote against official PEC protocols.  The case was then heard by the Kyiv Court of Appeals on November 4 with a verdict delivered shortly after 3 am on November 5.  Once again, the case was dismissed on a technicality with the judges refusing to allow four credible witnesses the opportunity to testify on the plaintiff’s behalf.  These four witnesses were the PEC Heads of four disputed polling stations who came to the court with a full set of documentation that validates that the votes reported per the CEC website do not correspond to the results per the final PEC protocols issued.  In both court cases, the international observers in the room were astounded by these court proceedings and verdicts reached. 

In addition, disturbing developments have occurred in DEC No. 94 (Obukhiv, Kyiv Oblast), another single mandate district where both DEC and judicial proceedings have been attended by UWC IEOM observers from Monday October 29^th until today.  The CEC initially posted a victory for United Opposition candidate Victor Romaniuk over Party of Regions candidate Tetyana Zasukha by over 8,500 votes.  However, this past week, the Party of Regions launched a case at the Kyiv Administrative Court asserting that its observers were denied access to a number of PECs within DEC 94, which surprisingly was upheld.  Shortly after 6 am this morning, DEC 94 cancelled the results of votes from 28 PECs and re-tabulated the vote count resulting in a victory for the Party of Regions candidate, Tetyana Zasukha by a margin of 1,169 votes.

In these cases and in multiple other DECs that continue to be monitored by UWC IEOM observers, where falsification has allegedly occurred that favors a pro-government candidate, it appears that these cases are being dismissed on technicalities and not accorded a fair hearing.  In closely contested cases where an opposition member has won, our observers have noted a consistent strategy followed whereby the votes of multiple PECs have been cancelled to result in the victory of a pro-government candidate.  This latter approach appears to be gaining further momentum, an example of this is the Kyiv District Administrative Court ruling late Sunday night to recount the votes of 19 PECs in DEC 216 in Kyiv, where United Opposition member Ksenya Lyapina has won by nearly 1,500 votes.  UWC IEOM observers will be closely monitoring DC 216 in the coming week.       

The UWC International Election Observer Mission calls upon the CEC to investigate the election results in these problematic single mandate districts and to avoid formal recognition of illegitimate election results that do not correspond with the fair and free vote of the Ukrainian people. 

The UWC continues to appeal to Ukrainian officials to follow the rule of law and focus all efforts on the satisfactory resolution of problems occurring in these still contested electoral districts.

The UWC IEOM will continue to monitor and report on the vote count at the DECs as well as any recounts and judicial proceedings relating to the election process.

The UWC is the international coordinating body for Ukrainian communities in the diaspora representing the interests of over 20 million Ukrainians. The UWC has member organizations in 33 countries and ties with Ukrainians in 14 additional countries. Founded in 1967 as a non-profit corporation, the UWC was recognized in 2003 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a non-governmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status.

 

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Ukrainian World Congress

145 Evans Ave., Suite 207
Toronto, ON 
M8Z 5X8 Canada

Tel. (416) 323-3020
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Kategorie: Mitteilungen des UWC

Erstellt: 29. Oktober 2012

Kyiv, Ukraine. October 29, 2012 - The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) is the largest non-government funded International Election Observation Mission (the Mission) monitoring Ukraine’s Parliamentary Elections of October 28, 2012. The Mission fielded over 250 observers from 20 countries (including observers from the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, a UWC member organization).  The purpose of the Mission is to assess both the pre-election environment and the parliamentary elections.  Based on the assessment of the long-term observation mission, which began its activities in early July 2012, the UWC decided to deploy a large short-term election observation mission to every region of Ukraine and several of Ukraine’s diplomatic missions around the world.

 

The Mission’s conclusions are based upon direct observations by its long-term observer mission and meetings held with officials from state institutions, the election administration, as well as representatives of political parties, media, civil society, and the international community.

   

During the election campaign, the Mission produced six reports on the Gerrymandering of Electoral Districts, Media Freedom (pre-campaign) in Lead-up to Official Start of Campaign, Election Financing, Media Freedom II (campaign), the Central Electoral Commission, and the Conduct of the Election Campaign.

 

The Mission has analyzed both the campaign and the elections in light of Ukraine’s international commitments to democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and fair and free elections. 

 

To properly examine whether the elections demonstrate the will of the Ukrainian people, the Mission examined the entire election process in the context of key international standards.  These included universal and equal suffrage, a sound legal framework, a level playing field for all contestants in the campaign, impartial and transparent election administration, an election process free of pressure and coercion, impartial and transparent election administration, independent media and balanced coverage, ability to remedy violations of electoral rights, and a voting process that is free of manipulation. 

 

Ukraine continues to hold elections for the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) every five years on the basis of universal suffrage and a secret ballot. Ukraine’s voters’ list has been overhauled in an attempt to make it both tamper proof and up-to-date. The election campaign did contain vigorous expressions of competing views on major issues by all parties. Although there were substantial impediments faced by the opposition, all parties held meetings, advertised their views and had varying degrees of access to the press.

 

There were nevertheless serious flaws in the way that the election campaign was conducted. These flaws have clearly affected the electoral vote and, thus, may have an impact on the relative representation of the major political parties in Parliament.

 

The imprisonment of a number of the principal opposition leaders, in particular the United Opposition  Party “Vseukraiynske Obyednannia Batkivschyna” leaders Yuliya Tymoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko, which have been condemned by international jurists, human rights organizations and democratic governments as politically motivated, casts from the outset severe doubt on whether the elections could have been considered to be free and fair.

 

A worrisome trend has been the decline in access to media coverage in Ukraine that has accelerated over the course of the election campaign.  As the government and its supporters control most media outlets in Ukraine, election coverage has been largely in favour of the government and pro-government political forces. Political advertisements disguised as regular articles and broadcasts have been placed by several political parties and have constituted a major part of Ukrainian media content.

 

Many of the few remaining independent media channels have faced significant state-sanctioned pressure from tax and regulatory authorities.  Only after pressure from the Ukrainian and international communities, the government has pulled-back in one the most prominent case of harassment which involved the television station TVi.  Domestic and international pressure has also stopped the Ukrainian Parliament from adopting a law seeking to criminalize libel.  Local journalists have reported a growing number of harassment and assault cases.  Such a situation is incompatible with the free expression of all points of view involved in democratic elections.

 

The lack of transparency in the source of funds for the campaign, and of effective control of expenditures, the employment of government manpower and financial resources, and the offer of money by many parties and candidates as inducements to influence voters are not in accordance with international standards in the area of campaign finance.

 

The independence and impartiality of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), which are central to the credibility of the election results, are under question on issues of:

• the delimitation of the boundaries of the constituencies,
• the lack of openness and transparency in many of the CEC’s decisions, and
• an imbalance in the representation of the principal political parties in the District Electoral Commissions (DECs) and the Precinct Electoral Commissions (PECs).

 

On election day, approximately 250 UWC Short Term Election observers  (UWC STOs) monitored the elections in 12 oblasts of Ukraine including Cherkassy, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donesk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy, Zaporizhzha and the Crimean Autonomous Republic. UWC  STOs  were also present at many Ukrainian diplomatic missions throughout the world.

 

UWC  STOs visited polling stations including, among others, prisons, hospitals, schools and other institutions of higher learning; and local and district elections commissions, varying the length of stay at each site as necessary.

 

In monitoring the election process and the vote tabulation, UWC STOs reported several serious violations such as duplicate ballot boxes, a great surplus of ballots in relation to the number of registered voters at certain polling stations, and a deficiency of ballots at other polling stations. In addition, significant restrictions on the ability of UWC STOs to effectively observe voting and vote counting were noted at certain polling stations.  In certain circumstances, election commissioners refused to provide copies of election protocols to UWC STOs.

 

UWC STOs also noted serious organizational deficiencies such as late opening of polling stations, lack of voter privacy, insufficient number of protocols for reporting purposes, and ineffective video monitoring systems.

 

These violations and deficiencies undoubtedly affected the electoral results; however, it is difficult at this time to quantify their impact.  Notwithstanding the above, the majority of the voting public appears to have been able to exercise their voting rights at the polling stations on the day of the elections.

 

In the view of the Mission’s long and short term observation findings,  the 2012 Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine have not met all international standards for the conduct of democratic elections.

 

This preliminary statement is delivered prior to the completion of counting and tabulation, the announcement of preliminary and final results, and adjudication of possible complaints and appeals.  The Mission will publish a comprehensive final report, offering recommendations for potential improvements after completion of the process. The Ukrainian World Congress expresses gratitude to the Ukrainian people for their hospitality during the work of the International Election Observation Mission.

 

 

Tamara Olexy                                                        Paul Grod

Co-Head of Mission                                                 Co-Head of Mission

 

Derek Fraser

Chief Observer

 

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About UWC

 

The UWC is the international coordinating body for Ukrainian communities in the diaspora representing the interests of over 20 million Ukrainians. The UWC has member organizations in 33 countries and ties with Ukrainians in 14 additional countries. Founded in 1967 as a non-profit corporation, the UWC was recognized in 2003 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a non-governmental organization with special consultative status.

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Kategorie: Mitteilungen des UWC

Erstellt: 15. Oktober 2012

October 15, 2012

MEDIA RELEASE

 

UWC PRESIDENT MEETS WITH UKRAINIAN COMMUNITY AND GOVERNING AUTHORITIES IN BULGARIA

On October 3-5, 2012, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Eugene Czolij travelled to Sofia, Bulgaria, where he familiarized himself with local Ukrainian community life and discussed current Ukrainian issues with governing authorities.

The UWC President's visit was organized by the Maty-Ukrayina Foundation chaired by Olena Koceva.

Eugene Czolij first met with the leadership of the Maty-Ukrayina Foundation. Discussions revolved around the successes and challenges faced by the Ukrainian community,primarily the establishment of a national representation titled Association of Ukrainian Organizations in Bulgaria Maty-Ukrayina and its future membership in the UWC, and the importance of securing premises for community activities.

Subsequently, Eugene Czolij held a series of meetings with high-ranking government officials. In a meeting with the Foreign Policy Secretary to the President of Bulgaria, Tihomir Stoytchev, and the Director of the Directorate “European states” of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Bulgaria, Hristo Georgiev, theUWC Presidentdiscussed the need for Ukraine's Euro-integration and democratization, the significance of the Parliamentary elections in Ukraine later this month, the urgency for ceasing the pressure being exerted on its mass media and releasing political prisoners, particularly Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko. Accompanied by leaders of the Maty-Ukrayina Foundation, the UWC President met with a representative of the capital city's administration, Executive Director of the Sofia Development Association Svetlana Lomeva. The delegation discussed several issues, including the erection of a monument honoring the victims of the Holodomor of 1932-33, landscaping of the area surrounding the Taras Shevchenko monument, and the clean-up of the surroundings of the territory around the memorial plaque dedicated to Ukrainian academic Mykhailo Drahomanov. A letter from the Ukrainian community highlighting these and other issues addressed to the Mayor of Sofia was presented during this meeting. Eugene Czolij also requestedthat governing authorities in Bulgaria provide facilities for the activities of the Ukrainian community.  

In addition, the UWC President discussed current issues with members of the Ukrainian diplomatic corps - Oleksandr Lapskyi and Iryna Kozyk, asking that they actively respond to the needs of the Ukrainian community in Bulgaria.

During a community meeting, Eugene Czolij had an opportunity to present the activities of the UWC and better familiarize himself with the activities of Ukrainians in Bulgaria.

The trip also included a visit to the Taras Shevchenko monument, the grave sites of renowned Ukrainian sculptor Mykhailo Paraschuk and academic Mykhailo Drahomanov, a memorial plaque dedicated to the latter, and the Embassy of the Ukrainian National Republic.

 HYPERLINK "http://www.ukrpressbg.com/dia-070510Pametnik-Kobzar-Sofia.html" \t "_self"

The UWC is the international coordinating body for Ukrainian communities in the diaspora representing the interests of over 20 million Ukrainians. The UWC has member organizations in 33 countries and ties with Ukrainians in 14 additional countries. Founded in 1967 as a non-profit corporation, the UWC was recognized in 2003 by the United Nations Economic and Social Council as a non-governmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status.

 

Ukrainian World Congress

145 Evans Ave., Suite 207
Toronto, ON 
M8Z 5X8 Canada

Tel. (416) 323-3020
Fax (416) 323-3250
e-mail: Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein!

website: www.ukrainianworldcongress.org