12th Ukraine Breakfast Debate: “Monitoring Ukraine’s Presidential Elections: Chances and Challenges”
On April 11, 2019, our 12th Ukraine Breakfast Debate on the topic “Monitoring Ukraine’s Presidential Election: Chances & Challenges” took place within the framework of the project “Platform for Analytics and Intercultural Communication” (PAIC). This edition was organized as an extended format in cooperation with “Civic School for Sound EU Practice” (CiSEP), consisting of an interactive working session that would complement the expert talk. Our experts, Iryna Shvets, Civil Network OPORA Lviv, and Anastasia Matvienko, All-Ukrainian NGO “Committee of Voters of Ukraine“ Odessa, provided substantive inputs before the participants could test themselves as election observers based on real cases.
Despite numerous challenges like the enormous amount of candidates registered for the presidential race (39) as well as opaque campaign funding, the Ukrainian presidential elections that took place in spring 2019 have been labled “free and fair” by the international community. Our experts noted that the presidential race has been characterized by true and honest competition for the position. Furthermore, more citizens living in the Eastern regions of Donezk and Luhansk as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs) would have been able to cast their vote, in comparison to the 2014 elections. Moreover, it would be remarkable that the Ukrainan-Russian language cleavage that is, the division of the multilingual Ukrainian society along the choice and use of their first language, would have been blurred and less important in campaigning: The Russian-speaking candidate Zelenskyy received majorities even in the most western, traditionally Ukrainian-speaking regions. The input ended with insights into the Ukrainian electoral system, the Election Law as well as into the basics of election observation to prepare our guests for the subsequent working session.
During the second part of the breakfast debate, the participants examined situations that occurred during the presidential campaign and assessed these situations with regards to their compliance with the law and codes of conduct. These cases included, among other things, the nomination of so-called technical candidates, the manipulation of polling results for election campaign purposes, job offers made for the support of a candidate, or candidate-financed bus transfers to the polling stations. The guests also presented proposals to prevent such cases, such as an extended voting period, which may potentially allow distant voters to travel autonomously to the ballot stations.
In the final Q&A, last remaining questions concerning election observation have been clarified. Here, the participants showed a particular interest in the funding mechanism of election observation organisations, their way of dealing with the media, and the role of “fake” election observers.
The extended format of the Ukraine Breakfast Debate has created a more interactive setting and enabled the development of constructive and creative solutions to existing problems. We would like to thank all participants as well as our experts Iryna Shvets and Anastasia Matvienko for this fruitful exchange.
The project “Platform for Analytics and Intercultural Communication” (PAIC) aims at promoting professional expertise among Ukrainian think tanks, creating synergies between German and Ukrainian think tanks and transferring knowledge about developments in Ukraine to Germany. PAIC is conducted in close cooperation with the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF, Kyiv) and the think tanks development and research initiative think twice UA (Kyiv) and is kindly supported by the Federal Foreign Office.
The Civic School for Sound EU Practice (CiSEP) is a training programme for active citizens and change-makers in Ukraine. It creates a network of Association Agreement specialists with the common goal of enhancing Ukraine’s European integration. It is conducted in close cooperation with the Polissya Foundation for International and Regional Studies (Chernihiv), the Civil Network OPORA (Lviv), the Odessa Regional Organization of All-Ukrainian NGO “Committee of Voters of Ukraine” (Odessa) and the NGO Public Chamber of Ukraine and is supported by the Federal Foreign Office.