[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
113th Congress Printed for the use of the
2d Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
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UKRAINE'S PIVOTAL PARLIAMENTARY POLL
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
NOVEMBER 14, 2014
Briefing of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Washington: 2015
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
234 Ford House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-1901
[email protected]
http://www.csce.gov
Legislative Branch Commissioners
SENATE HOUSE
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland, CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey,
Chairman Co-Chairman
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island JOSEPH PITTS, Pennsylvania
TOM UDALL, New Mexico ROBERT ADERHOLT, Alabama
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire PHIL GINGREY, Georgia
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut MICHAEL BURGESS, Texas
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi ALCEE HASTINGS, Florida
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,
New York
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and
Cooperation in Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki
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ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the
Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to
monitor and encourage compliance by the participating States with their
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UKRAINE'S PIVOTAL PARLIAMENTARY POLL
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November 14, 2014
COMMISSIONER
Page
Hon. Michael Burgess, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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WITNESSES
Olha Aivazovska, Board Chair, Ukrainian Citizen Network OPORA..........
3
Katie Fox, Deputy Director, Eurasia, National Democratic Institute.....
5
Stephen Nix, Director of Eurasia, International Republican Institute...
8
Gavin Weise, Deputy Director Europe and Asia International Foundation
for Electoral System...................................................
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PARTICIPANTS
Orest Deychakiwsky, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe..................................................
2
David Kostelancik, Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe..................................................
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UKRAINE'S PIVOTAL PARLIAMENTARY POLL
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November 14, 2014
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, DC
The briefing was held from 2:00 to 3:27 p.m. EST in 608 Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Washington D.C., Congressman Michael Burgess,
presiding.
Mr. Burgess. Very well. I would like to welcome everyone here
today. My name is Michael Burgess. I'm a member of Congress from the
state of Texas, just a little bit north of Fort Worth. I do want to
welcome everyone to today's Helsinki Commission briefing assessing the
October 26th Ukrainian parliamentary elections. We're so pleased and
honored to have with us four distinguished panelists, all seasoned
experts with long years of experience working with Ukraine.
One often hears such terms as historic or milestone or critical to
describe various elections. Sometimes, arguably, these are
exaggerations. Not this time. This is truly a crucial moment for the
future of the Ukraine. Not only does Ukraine face its most serious
external threat since its independence, but it also faces significant
internal challenges--overcoming the institutional corruption which has
so debilitated the country, reforming the system of governance, getting
the economy back on track and tacking the dire humanitarian situation
resulting from the war and other challenges.
The encouraging news is that the election of the most pro-Western
Rada in Ukraine's history leaves no doubt that the Ukrainian people
want changes and a greater connection to Europe. It is a mandate for
economic reform and an end to pervasive corruption and a determination
to resist the aggression from Russia. In short, Ukrainians want to live
a united, independent, stable and prosperous democracy. While there is
no doubt that the war in the Donbass complicates the reform efforts,
Russia's aggression has made the Ukraine more united and more
democratic and, ironically, more pro-Western. The election results
affirm that.
With these elections, Ukraine has its best chance since
independence to consolidate its democracy. It is vital for the new
government and Rada to seize the moment. Indeed, this election was
remarkable. Like the election in May that saw the ascension of
President Poroshenko, I was a Helsinki Commission observer at both. As
such, I'd like to share with you some observations. The OSCE and others
in the international community have assessed positively. It was held in
accordance with international norms and upheld Ukraine's democratic
commitments to its citizens. It was well-organized, it was transparent
and it was peaceful.
Clearly, these early elections were a marked improvement over the
last parliamentary elections in October 2012. We saw no problems in any
of the polling places we visited. The polling process was conducted
calmly and efficiently. This assessment was shared overwhelmingly by
other international observers. This is not to say that elections were
problem free. They never are. It doesn't mean that there's not room for
improvement, because there always is. I'm sure our panelists will
address these problem areas and, in their assessment, what needs to be
accomplished.
As a Congress it is clear as an institution that we stand in
solidarity with Ukraine. Time and again we have passed funding and aid
packages for Ukraine. However, considering the consistent aggression
and the utter lack of regard for any nominal peace agreement that
Russia has shown towards the people of Ukraine, frankly, Ukraine needs
more than just funding. Ukraine needs weapons, ammunition, body armor
and communications equipment. President Poroshenko came before the
United States Congress and addressed a joint session of the United
States Congress last September.
He has met with President Obama. Although President Obama has yet
to heed the requests of the people of the Ukraine, I have introduced
legislation that does just that. H.R. 53-15 creates a lend-lease
program that authorizes the president of the United States to transfer
certain military equipment to the Ukraine. While aid and funding is
certainly necessary, weapons and munitions are just as important to
repel the pro-Russian forces that are invading a sovereign nation.
Given my interest in the subject, I am pleased to be leading this
panel of experts today. But because of travel constraints, I'm
unfortunately not able to stay with you. But I will defer to the
Helsinki Commission staff for the panel's introduction.
Orest.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thank you very much, Dr. Burgess. I must say, it
was a real pleasure to have the opportunity to be an election observer
with you in Kyiv, Kaniv and points in between. I'll go right straight
to the introductions. Thank you very much.
I'll introduce our panel in order of appearance. First is Olha
Aivazovska. Olha studied at the Cherkasy National University's faculty
of the Ukrainian language in journalism. She was the head of the
Cherkasy Oblast civic group PORA and was the head of the Cherkasy
OPORA. She also served as the PR manager of OPORA. Since 2007, she's
been the editor and chief of the Tochka OPORY newspaper. In 2009, she
was elected the chair of the board of OPORA. Under Olha's leadership,
OPORA has monitored the campaign period and election day and conducted
parallel vote tabulations in Ukrainian nationwide elections in 2010,
2012 and 2014. After Olha, Katie Fox will speak. Katie oversees NDI's
programs in Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. Katie began her
career with NDI in 1995 as a Kyiv-based manager of civic and electoral
program for NDI. She's since traveled and trained extensively for NDI
throughout the former Soviet Union. A lawyer by training, Katie was a
lobbyist for a public employees union, a community organizer and
legislative staff in several congressional offices prior to joining
NDI.
Stephen Nix joined IRI in October 2000 as regional program director
for Eurasia. In that position, he oversees programs in Belarus,
Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Russia, Moldova and Ukraine. Steve joined
IRI after serving for two years as senior democracy specialist at the
U.S. Agency for International Development. He is a specialist in
political party development and judicial and legal reform in the former
Soviet Union and lived in Ukraine when, I believe, he was working for
IFES for several years in the 1990s.
Gavin Weise is deputy director for Europe and Asia at IFES, the
International Foundation for Electoral Systems, managing IFES'
portfolio of election assistance programs in countries of Southeastern
European and the former Soviet Union. He's worked for over a decade in
elections in democratic transition programs in Ukraine. He's led a
number of assessments of electoral processes and legal frameworks in
Ukraine and other countries in the region, and previously he was the
regional director for Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus at the Eurasia
Foundation, based in Kiev.
So without further delay, let's proceed. Olha, the floor is yours.
Ms. Aivazovska. Thank you very much. I want to show you a short
presentation about these elections and our results as an organization
who observed very well during this process. We had 213 long term
observers during all campaign, and 2000 short-term observers on
election day and after election day in district election commissions.
A short presentation about candidates and about campaigns. I think
we've had a great progress about some positions. Firstly, our
candidates--we had more candidates in 2012, and we had less numbers of
technical parties during this campaign. For example, in 2012, our
technical parties near 81 during all elections, registered candidates
in single-member districts. But this process was only about the seats
in electoral commissions, different levels as districts and as election
commissions. That's why this last position is better for Ukrainian
election than in previous regular election in 2012.
We had progress with women in elections, especially in political
parties' lists. For example, in 2012, we had near 20 percent of women
in political parties list now, more than 26. Then our candidates were
much more younger than in previous period. 32 percent of candidates
were younger than 35 years. It's good for Ukraine, because many young
people were very active during this revolution, and after revolution
period, as NGO, as journalist and so on. That's why this election is
like mirror of all political process in Ukraine, and our candidates had
a good education. More than 92 percent had higher education. That is
good. I want to show you a few slides about nonparty candidates in
party lists. We think that it is a problem for Ukrainian politics and
politicians, because many of candidates in party list was nonparty
candidates. That means that in the future parliament, we don't know how
they will work with their political fraction, with their parties and
with other fractions, because they don't have any communication,
cooperation and history with these parties. It's like political
projects, only during one election and nothing else.
Formerly, we elected new parties in parliament are very new as a
political structure, but unfortunately, this partly mostly are
political projects only for one elections. For examples, such parties
as opposition blocs had 98 percent nonparty members in their party
lists. For example, such party as communist party had such position
only for 1 percent. Svoboda National Democratic Party, in their list,
had zero members of these political parties.
We analyzed such numbers for all party lists, and I can speak about
some of them, especially that--who were elected after this election.
For example, such party as Samopomich had 73 percent nonparty
candidates in their list. Bloc Petro Poroshenko had 67 percent of
nonparty candidates in their list. Such party as Strong Ukraine or
others, less than 30 percent nonparty candidates. We think that it is a
problem of Ukraine now that our political parties are not so capacity,
strength, organization as we need for our parliament.
That's why all international organization--Ukrainian
nongovernmental organization should push them to be more party as
political projects. I don't like to tell about violations after
elections, because it's like a story, but we should analyze some
information to understand what we will do, what we are going to do to
change this situation.
For example, these numbers is about violations which were--which
were observed by our observers during all of these period. Four hundred
violations--it's about agitation, information, black PR in electoral
campaign--193 is about voter bribing. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, we
have very high position of corruption and political corruption, too,
and it is a story not only about parties or candidates. It's a story
about voters, unfortunately, too. That's why these numbers are very
strong gap for our elections.
Then we can compare this part of problems with 2012, and I want to
show you these numbers. For example, in 2012, we observed and had 457
cases about abuse of administrative resource. Unfortunately, this
problem was very influence for our campaign and for results in 2012. At
the second stage was voter bribing--you had 363 cases, and it was a big
problem, especially in single-mandate district as 2014, but we had less
numbers of such cases; 302 cases in 2012 was about criminal
interference in electoral process. Now we had such problem--procedural
violations on the sought position, and I can say that this comparison
between 2012 and 2014 are very good picture for us, because,
unfortunately, we had many violations, but this violation was not so
strong for results after election campaign and for the voters as 2012.
About election days: We had many violations, but this number are
less than in 2012, and as you see, the top position is about attempts
to issue ballots without checking the passport for less than 4 percent
from all polling station in Ukraine, and so on. If you are talking
about voting counting, unfortunately, it is a problem in Ukraine,
because we had such story as 2004, for example, presidential election,
when, after vote and counting, we had another result than after voting
of citizens. We can share with you such information about violations.
So the main--the main result of our observing is about the single-
mandate ballots were worse counted than in the national district.
I'm talking about problem of electoral system in Ukraine, when we
have so many cases about political corruption, and unfortunately, with
these single-mandate districts, our politicians couldn't be better than
without this corruption system. If you are talking about turnout,
unfortunately, many politicians, especially abroad from Russian
Federation, too, from pro-Russian political groups, said that turnout
in Ukraine was less than ever in our history. Yes, of course, it was
less, but not so much, because we compare this turnout with the
previous election--for example, in 2006, 2010, we have--we had 58 and
57 percent of turnout--in 2012, it was 57, so we had less turnout, but
you know that there is a war in Ukraine. That's why, in some territory,
people unfortunately couldn't vote, even near their house were open
polling stations.
For example, in Luhansk Oblast, Rubizhne, district number 112,
terrorist sent people--they distribute special letters that if you will
go to the polling station, we will shot you. That's why many people
don't go to vote, because they afraid about their lives. Our results of
PVT organization work not only about quantitative--qualitative analysis
of this election, but with quantitative too. That's why we organize
PVT--parallel vote tabulation with special--with special--OK--we
organize PVT, and here is the results of our PVT.
For example, light blue is our results of PVT, which were
publicized on Monday, 27th of October, and dark blue, it's about CEC
results--official results, which were published on this week in
Ukraine. The third column, it's about results--one of the exit polls.
Unfortunately, we had many exit polls, but their results wasn't
correct, especially for such parties--People's Party, for such party as
Bloc Petro Poroshenko because all of the exit polls showed that the
first position was by Petro Poroshenko, not People's Front. The main
mistake was about such party as Svoboda, because all of exit polls
showed that they get results more than 5 percent, but unfortunately it
wasn't true.
That's why our PVT was so strong because political example of
results because we think that with PVT, many parties, especially pro-
Russian politicians, wanted to say that results was falsificated, but
it isn't true because results was correct, especially official results,
but exit polls didn't show us--for us real results because margin of
error is too high compared with PVT. For example, margin of error for
Svoboda was 0.2 in our research. They don't get 5 percent,
unfortunately.
If you are talking about visualization or some information about
results, we prepared special online map when everybody made to see
results per each district about turnout, about results or political
parties and about results of candidates in single-mandate districts.
For example, it's results of People Front, and you can understand where
their voters live and what part of Ukraine prefer to give more votes
for this political parties. It's about luck of Petro Poroshenko. It's
about Samopovich. It's about Opposition Bloc where there were many,
many politicians from Party of Region as a party close to Viktor
Yanukovych, and you very well can see that it is eastern Ukrainian
party. About Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko and Batkivshchyna.
Thank you.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thank you very much, Olha.
Katie, please.
Ms. Fox. Thank you very much, Orest, for the opportunity to speak
here today, and David, thank you. OK.
The National Democratic Institute, which I represent, also
monitored the recent elections. We were very pleased also to assist
OPORA in conducting their PVT as well as to help the European Network
of Election Monitoring Organizations, which is a network of the groups
like OPORA in the countries of Eastern Europe. NDI's delegation to the
election said, quote, Ukraine's October 26 parliamentary elections
marked a major achievement for a country fighting foreign--facing
fighting and foreign intervention. For the second time in less than six
months, the Ukrainian people have conducted elections that meet
international democratic standards in spite of the Russian occupation
of Crimean and Russian-backed separatist conflicts in the east. I want
to pause a minute on this point on foreign intervention because it's
even truer today with Russian troops again marching into Ukraine. The
war is not the subject of today's briefing, but it is very difficult to
talk about Ukraine and about elections and democracy without mentioning
it.
At stake is not only a fighting chance for a democratic government
in a very tough neighborhood but Russia's ability to unilaterally
redraw foreign borders through aggression. Ukraine's struggle should be
of concern, therefore, of all of us. I was very happy and appreciative
to hear Congressman Burgess' supportive remarks and also for support
from other corners of the U.S. government.
NDI's monitoring delegation further concluded that the electoral
process involved some shortcomings but that none appeared to undermine
electoral credibility. As Olga has told you in greater detail, there
were problems in the legal framework, sporadic incidents of violence,
intimidation and attempts to disrupt voting, some voter bribery and
smear campaigns in the media as well as insufficient promotion of women
and inadequate regulation of campaign finance. But these issues were
less pervasive than in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Very
important, it did not appear to be centrally orchestrated or directed
against a particular political target.
There was, as the invitation to this event noted, some
disenfranchisement for voters. I want to elaborate a little bit on that
because it's very important to note the source here of voter--the
source of the voter disenfranchisement. In most cases where NDI
monitors elections, the source is political contestants or authorities
themselves. In this case, voters in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk were
disenfranchised because of the actions of foreign forces and armed
groups allied with them.
This does not delegitimize the parliamentary elections. In fact,
officials are making every effort to conduct democratic elections, and
there's--the actions of these armed groups does not undermine that
effort. We can also point to cases in Cyprus, Moldova and Georgia
recently where the central government has lost control over some of its
territories, which has led to disenfranchisement, and in those of
voters. In that case--in those cases, no one questioned the legitimacy
of those elections. The same is true in Ukraine.
Turning for a minute to the challenges ahead for the new parliament
and the government as a whole in Ukraine: Although Ukrainians are
divided on many things, they are certainly united, wanting an end to
the old Yanukovych-style corruption, and they gave in these elections a
reasonably strong mandate to reformers in the new parliament to end
that corruption. Moreover, it appears that Ukraine's leaders, including
President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, have heeded the
lessons of the Orange Revolution, and they understand that democrats
need to work together.
Despite all of this, what our office is hearing on the ground is
that the negotiations which are going on now to form a governing
majority coalition in the parliament are very difficult. It's very
difficult for the five parties, five reform-oriented parties, to reach
agreement. There are fissures within the parties themselves. For
example, UDAR and bloc of Poroshenko are going to contest local
elections separately after running together presidential. The new party
Volia is splintering, which is creating fissures within the new
Samopomich faction, of which it's a part. By the way, the people who
we've spoken to in the Opposition Bloc say that they are equally
disorganized. They can't even really decide what to call themselves.
They of course have even more trouble setting out a common vision.
Once a government is formed, it's going to be very, very hard to
exercise the discipline that will be necessary to pass difficult
reforms. As Olga has pointed out, many of the people who were elected
feel little loyalty to the party lists in which they were elected. They
are a disparate election of battalion commanders, journalists, NGO
leaders and more traditional long-serving politicians. They came to
parliament for different reasons, they have different external
constituencies, and divisions are inevitable, especially when they have
to confront very controversial issues, such as decentralization,
lustration, deciding how lustration is implemented and who loses their
job, deciding how decentralization goes and who--where power ends out
at the local level. These are hard issues, not to mention economic
collapse and fighting a war.
In these conditions, it would be very difficult for any
democratically elected parliament, including, I'm sure, our own
Congress, to meet citizens' expectations for sweeping reforms quickly
implemented. However, what the Ukrainian government can do is to try to
retain the patience and confidence of citizens in this reform process
by bringing them into it, by making them partners in the process, as
long as--as long and difficult as that process may be. This will
require a lot of creativity, a lot of effort to set up mechanisms for
public discussion and consultation, to really reach deep.
The challenge is to give impatient and alienated citizens a sense,
as I said, that they are partners, or at least that they're being heard
in the reform process that's being driven by the central government.
This will require going beyond what's called the grass tops, the
leaders of civic organizations, to get to those Ukrainians who are
either not active in politics or the groups that are just taking reform
process into their own hands, the mobs who are conducting what's called
people's lustration, where they confront officials they believe are
corrupt and force them to sign resignation letters and sometimes toss
them into dumpsters. Armed groups who've threatened that if reform
doesn't go well, they may come back with their arms to the Maidan,
these people too need to feel a stake in the reform process.
I want to just quickly share with you, in the interests of trying
to understand what would attract Ukrainians, particularly in the south
and east, into peaceful civic activism and support of reform, NDI has
helped a coalition of civic groups to conduct some public opinion
polling recently. This is a coalition called For Peaceful Protest. It's
a group that has been very instrumental in helping to protect the
freedom of assembly in Ukraine, including during the Euromaidan
demonstrations. After the ``revolution of dignity,'' they wanted to see
what would motivate people, especially southern and eastern citizens,
to get involved in more everyday business of politics beyond protest.
So they conducted polls and focus groups in Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv,
Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhya, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa. I'm not going
to go over in much detail, but one of the most interesting findings
from this poll was the way that people viewed civic activism. A solid
majority of the respondents believe that in Ukraine, people get
involved in civic activism to do good, to change the world for the
better or to protect someone's rights. This is a departure from past
polls in which most people have much more cynically seen civic
activism, civic organizing as something people may do for their own
personal benefit or advancement.
In addition, there are a lot more specific findings in the poll
about the particular issues--in the focus group--that--particular
issues that would motivate people to get involved and the way they need
to be approached, the need for organizers and so forth. We're still
sort of sorting that out, and I'm not going to go into it, but I think
the overall picture is of a citizenry that wants to participate and
that has energy and enthusiasm and wants to participate in constructive
ways to the reform process. In the future, NDI will be working with
this group, For Peaceful Protest, as well as with other NGOs to channel
desire for reforms into civic activism.
We'll also be very proud to share our global experience OPORA as
they renew their project on parliamentary monitoring and watchdogging
the new parliament, which you may want to ask Olha about in the
questions. NDI along with IRI will also be flagging assistance to
parties and parliamentarians. I'd like to just conclude my
presentation, again, with a reminder of the urgent need for all of us
to help Ukraine, for the international community to support Ukraine in
every way, in every form at this crucial juncture. Ukraine's response
to the challenges it now faces will certainly have reverberations far
beyond its own borders.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thanks, Katie, for your insights. I particularly
found interesting that poll on civic activism where there is a
transition being made from working for one's personal benefit to doing
good, and that truly could be a game-changer. Thanks again.
Steve.
Mr. Nix. First of all, thank you to the members of the commission
for convening this hearing today. Ukraine and Eurasia remain of great
strategic importance to the United States, in particular at this time
when Ukrainian people and their newly elected leadership face
tremendous and unprecedented challenges. This briefing is both timely,
and it's necessary. My thanks go out to you, David and Orest, for
hosting this. I request that my written statement be entered into the
record.
On October 26th, millions of Ukrainians went to the polls to elect
a new government, a government that would focus on implementing long-
term reforms, and secondly, to respond to Russian aggression. An
overwhelming majority of Ukrainians were able to vote, despite the fact
that fighting continued in eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea
made it virtually impossible for Crimean citizens to vote in this
election. Ukrainians turned out to support the journey to Europe, a
journey that had started on the Maidan and now continues.
The International Republican Institute fielded an international
election observation team. IRI has observed every national election
that has taken place since Ukraine gained its independence from the
Soviet Union. Observers have visited more than 150 polling stations in
various oblasts. We are also very pleased to note that IRI observers
were able to get into the contested area of Donestk, and we were
actually able to observe voting that took place in the town of
Slaviansk, a town that as many of you recall was the subject of intense
fighting and only had recently been retaken by the Ukrainian government
and is currently over--under Ukrainian control.
Our mission found that the elections were well administered. We
found that polling officials were professional and organized throughout
the process. Our observers reported only minor, nonsystemic problems,
technicalities, none of which would have affected the outcome of this
election. We applaud the way that this election was administered, and
we applaud the many election commission members who took part in this,
many under very difficult conditions.
These elections illustrate Ukrainians' resounding choice to
continued European integration. The vast majority of members of
parliament who have been elected represent a pro-European choice.
President Poroshenko importantly will now have a working coalition to
support him in his efforts for reform and further integration into
Europe.
But despite the successful elections, Ukraine faces many
significant challenges. First and foremost, the threat to Ukraine's
territorial integrity by its Russian neighbor. Russian and Russian-
backed militants have chosen to ignore the Minsk peace accord. They
continually seek to seize additional territory in eastern Ukraine.
They've launched daily attacks on Ukrainian positions and checkpoints,
including the strategically important airport in Donetsk. Recently
militants have launched an offensive along the Azov Sea, threatening
the city of Mariupol. More than 100 Ukrainian servicemen have lost
their lives since the so-called Minsk peace agreement was signed.
With much attention focused on the conflict of eastern Ukraine,
Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea has often been overlooked by the
international community. Since the annexation, conditions on the
peninsula have only worsened. They've gotten worse for supporters of
Ukrainian unity and especially for the Crimean Tatars. Crimean
residents have been forced to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship in
favor of Russian citizenship. In the last few months Crimean Tatars
have become the target of Russian prosecution. According to Mustafa
Dzhemilev, who's the leader of the Crimean Tatars, 18 Tatars are
missing, many kidnapped in broad daylight. Tatars have been--have had
their homes illegally searched, property confiscated, their centers and
places of worship raided and seized. Numerous criminal cases have been
opened against Tatar political leadership.
These threats to Ukraine's territory and its people are real, and
the international community should support President Poroshenko in his
efforts to resolve these issues. Ukraine will not be able to pursue the
reforms needed to move closer to Europe while its territory is under
siege by foreign actors. A peaceful and whole Ukraine is of paramount
strategic importance and must be a priority for the West.
IRI nationwide polling in Ukraine confirms very simple facts. First
and foremost, Ukrainians want peace. They also want anti-corruption
efforts, and they want economic reform, jobs. These are the key issues.
They continue to be key issues for the past six months. The government
has to seize the opportunity to undertake wide-ranging economic and
judicial reforms. The economy is teetering on the verge of collapse.
This is only exacerbated by the Russian ban on Ukrainian imports.
As Ukraine braces for gas shortages ahead of what might be a long
winter, Ukrainian economy shows little signs of improvement, with the
hryvnia hitting a record low. The months ahead are likely to be very
difficult for the Ukrainian people.
Europe and the United States cannot allow the Ukrainian government
to face these challenges alone. The West should provide the president
and parliament with the economic, technical and other assistance to
ensure that Ukraine realizes its aspirations in the face of overt
Russian aggression.
At IRI, we're working to help Ukrainian people and government
consolidate democracy. While Ukraine's future is obviously up to
Ukrainians, we believe that the community of Western democracies can
play a role in providing the tools and assistance that can help Ukraine
continue along its democratic path. IRI will continue to provide survey
data on key issues to parliament and the executive branch to assist the
president, prime minister and members of parliament in framing
legislative and ministerial reform agendas. We will also continue our
regional governance work to respond to the need for knowledge and
skills as Ukraine addresses the issue of decentralization and radically
reform their local government.
IRI will soon open an office and training center in the city of
Dnipropetrovsk, where we will focus on efforts on locally elected
officials, providing them training and expertise. We'll also be
bringing eastern elected officials to cities in Western Ukraine, and
vice versa. We hope in doing so we cannot only increase their level of
expertise but build the unity that President Poroshenko and others
acknowledge are necessary for Ukraine to continue its path to Europe.
Although Russian propaganda would have us believe that Ukrainians
are divided and engaged in a bitter civil war, Ukrainians have never
been more united than now. IRI also recognizes that more must be done
to promote and enhance these linkages between Ukrainians. In sum,
Ukraine will always have a special relationship with Russia and its
people, with its language, its culture and historical ties. But through
the Maidan and now the May and October elections, the people have
spoken very loudly. Ukrainians of all backgrounds, ages and faiths have
said that they want to decide their own future, a future with greater
freedom, greater democracy and closer ties to Europe. It is at this
critical time in Ukraine's further democratic development that the West
must stand with our Ukrainian friends and do all we can to support them
in their efforts to further consolidate democratic processes throughout
their country.
Thank you, and I'll be happy to take any questions at the end of
the testimony.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thanks, Stephen. In particular, thanks for
emphasizing Crimea. It's easy to forget Crimea these days because the
focus on Dohensk and Luhansk--the war in eastern Donbass, but it's
important not to forget Crimea, including the plight of the Crimean
Tatars.
Gavin.
Mr. Weise. Thank you, Orest. Thank you, everyone, for coming in
today. I'm not sure what else there is to be said after following these
very distinguished and thorough presentations, but I will do my best.
As you have heard today, the early parliamentary elections were
regarded as successful by domestic and international observers alike,
and I will not go into the many reasons why, but rather concur with
this general assessment, and instead I'll summarize the elections from
a different viewpoint, mainly--and something Katie, I think, touched
on--is just addressing lingering concerns regarding the legitimacy of
this election and the ensuing government; and second, the need for
further support to still nascent political and electoral institutions
of Ukraine.
As to whether the elections are legitimate when they're called
early, when political forces are going through a period of rapid
transformation and the country a period of active and even open armed
conflict, I would offer just a few observations that are very similar
to those that I offered to Prime Minister Yatsenyuk on the eve of the
May 25 presidential poll, as we find ourselves in a similar situation.
On the 26th of October poll, voters had 29 parties to choose from in
the proportional list system, from the far left of the spectrum to the
far right of the political spectrum, and more when we include
candidates from the single-member districts. While many parties were
small and even frivolous, there were approximately 10 different parties
who in pre-election polls, in many different pre-election polls, showed
that they had at least a reasonable chance to win seats in the new
parliament. Arguably, Ukrainian voters have not had this number and
variety of meaningful political options since, really, post-Soviet
independence. The values, the platforms, the programs of political
parties were accessible to the electorate, largely. Television in
Ukraine is by far the most prevalent source of voter outreach and voter
information. While access to that airtime is very dependent and
actually too dependent, probably, or definitely, on the bank accounts
of political parties and their patrons, the level of freedom of media
in a post-Yanukovych Ukraine is sufficient enough to allow different
voices on the political spectrum to be heard.
Ukraine should also be recognized for having now an efficient
system of voter eligibility and registration. This was once heavily
criticized by political parties and observers for the vulnerability
that it provides to fraud or opens up to fraud, and now it is generally
sound. Moreover, it's a system, very importantly, that could
accommodate the registration of tens of thousands of citizens from
Crimea and from Donbass that would enable them to vote in their places
of refuge. This is a right they might not have been afforded under a
less-sophisticated system. The election authority, which is the Central
Election Commission of Ukraine, together with other government
agencies, succeeded in administering the vote on October 26th despite
numerous threats, a smaller than usual elections budget and of course
ongoing shelling, conflict, intimidation in certain parts of the
country.
It's true, the elections didn't take place in several districts in
eastern regions and in Crimea, as we've heard today. However, remember,
this was a question of territorial control by the government in Kiev
and not a lack of competency by the election administration, or
importantly, an unwillingness to try. I say women because it is mostly
women--and men who risked being a casualty of armed conflict, who faced
harassment, intimidation and who still face this risk even today for
their service in these past elections, should really be regarded as
heroes. IFES has had the opportunity to work with many of these
commissioners in the east, having had a number of staff and trainers
work there in Donetsk, in Luhansk, in the weeks and months prior to the
election.
There were some challenges to the results. As we speak, there are
ongoing court-related recounts in two of the single member districts.
But this is a basic feature of any functioning democracy, and overall
there's been a general acceptance of the results by the public and
political contestants alike.
There will be, as was already mentioned, several new forces and
faces in the Verkhovna Rada. It includes not only the pro-Western
European parties that will now work together to form a coalition, but
it also includes representatives of the former Yanukovych party and it
also includes representatives of the Euromaidan movement and also
military and even paramilitary. So this may be quite a hodgepodge of
individuals and factions in the parliament, but it's arguably the most
diverse and representative parliament Ukraine's had to date. although
it's still very low, as Olha mentioned earlier and showed us on the
slide, it's the highest representation of women in Ukraine's
legislature in the country's post-Soviet history.
There is no single definition or criteria that I could find or that
I'm aware of for having legitimate elections, but I would posit that
when you have political choice, you have access to information on
candidates, you have enfranchisement of citizens, you have a
functioning election administration and you have a general acceptance
of the electoral outcome, you may--you have many, if not all, the
characteristics of a legitimate election process.
Is there work to be done? Absolutely. There were at least 15 of the
almost 200 single election constituencies where officials faced
problems in coming up with results in a timely and transparent manner.
They were problems inside and outside the polling station inherent in
the system administration and political culture of Ukraine. The
problems are cumbersome. Some procedures are cumbersome. Some polling
station sizes are unwieldy for Ukraine's manual counting of ballots.
Election workers get at most half a day of training. The majority get
no training at all except which is provided by their peers. Access to
voting for persons with disabilities remains fraught with difficulty
due to the infrastructure and also cultural legacies of the country.
At some point next year, we'll have local elections. The challenge,
as I mentioned, will undoubtedly surface again. In fact, local
elections are, in my opinion and many others, by far the most complex
for parties, election administration bodies and for the electorate, for
the voters. The system of electing councils that in Ukraine's reality
has proved to hold open a door to fraud, abuse of administrative
resource and vote-buying in the past could and really should be
reviewed by Ukrainians to be certain that this really is the best
system to represent their citizens.
Regarding the electoral administration--I could go on on this one
for quite some time because it's the area where we work, but I won't--
but the current system of appointing all of the commissioners via
political party representatives and via lottery is clearly fraud. I'm
not saying that it is the wrong system--and it may be the only viable
possible system to have in Ukraine--but there are certain elements of
that system which currently right now are being abused to the point of
legalizing or making legal a form of fraud, which essentially is
allowing parties to try and control and unduly influence electoral
outcomes as opposed to exercising the right or exercising the role of a
professional election administration.
Now, the role of money in politics continues to be perhaps the
weakest point in Ukraine's--of Ukraine's elections. There is very
little regulation of campaign finance and--period. Together, with
Ukraine's civil society, IFES has drawn up draft legislation to improve
transparency of election financing and they were supported by the major
political groups in the previous parliament, including members of
Batkivshchyna, Poroshenko, Klitschko's Party, et cetera. But they were
not adopted prior to the parliament's dismissal. IFES and others remain
hopeful that this will be taken up early in the new agenda. To restrict
the oligarch's influence on political decision making, parliament also
needs to really think seriously about things like direct annual public
funding of political parties, limiting the value of private donations
to parties, introducing proportionate effective dissuasive sanctions
for violation of these rules. In many cases, there is no right or wrong
method or answer to some of those questions, but they are questions
that the new Rada should look at very seriously.
Friendly governments such as the U.S., and organizations such as
those sitting up here today, are and should be and are ready, willing
to support Ukraine in changing for the better. Such ills as I described
here can be effectively remedied in the months and years to come.
However, success in this process also requires political will on the
part of Ukraine and I, for one, believe the will is there; more so now
than perhaps it has ever been. In conclusion, or perhaps in lieu of a
conclusion, I must mention that, of all these reforms and those
regarding corruption, economy, administration of justice--the list goes
on and on--they will need to be implemented in a time that--perhaps
I've called it too lightly--of considerable uncertainty in Ukraine.
Considerable being an understatement when citizens residing in certain
towns, certain villages, even cities, don't know if they will even
still be part of Ukraine in days or a week from now. In such a context,
worrying about the future of these reforms seems a bit out of place. As
such, in arguing for U.S. support and vigilance of the continued
development for the political system and culture of Ukraine, I beseech
this commission, the U.S. government, society as a whole in the U.S. to
not neglect Ukraine in its darkest hour of need, when it faces the
clearest threat to its continued viability as a state since it became
independent 23 years ago. For a while, the soon to be constituted pro-
European parliamentary majority gives Ukraine the opportunity to move
beyond the status quo of an unsatisfactory governance that has beset
the country these many years. Surely, we must also help Ukraine to
preserve a different kind of status quo, that of its statehood and
territorial integrity. Thank you.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thanks, Gavin, and believe me, this commission
and all of the organizations here will continue to be very committed to
supporting Ukraine--definitely won't abandon Ukraine. But thanks all of
you for your comprehensive and complementary presentations.
I want to make a few comments before turning it over to the Q & A
session. One is, in terms of how they were conducted, I observed the
elections with Dr. Burgess for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly--the
OSCE, of course, was the largest mission, at over 1,000 short term
observers there, including close to 200 parliamentarians. I've observed
elections in nine countries--several dozen elections--and these were
just about the best I ever saw, based on the polling stations we
observed. We didn't see problems--didn't even see irregularities, so
either I'm losing my touch or they really, really were good. The vast
majority of the OSCE observers also assessed the voting process and
counting process quite positively.
The biggest negative in these elections--and this is underscoring
points my colleagues here made, I think--obviously, there were areas
that need improvement and Gavin and Olha and others touched upon those.
This is a process, after all. But the biggest negative was clearly the
inability of more than 10 percent of the population which was
effectively disenfranchised given Russia's illegal occupation of Crimea
and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. But, as Katie said, that does
not delegitimize these elections.
One thing I'd like to note is these elections stood in dramatically
sharp contrast to the farcical so-called elections that were held just
a week later, on November 2nd in the eastern Donbas, the areas
controlled by the Russians and their illegal armed Russian proxy
groups, or terrorists, as many have called them, I think appropriately.
These elections--so-called elections--were held in flagrant breach of
both Ukrainian law and of the Minsk ceasefire agreement. Clearly,
Russian aggression has cast a dark cloud on Ukraine, tremendously
complicating Ukraine's normal development, but reforms are still
absolutely necessary, including combating the scourge of corruption. I
hope that a coalition agreement is hammered out soon so that a new
government and the Rada could work effectively to keep meeting
Ukraine's many very serious internal challenges.
Before turning it over to Q & A from the audience, I'd like to
introduce David Kostelancik, who will make a comment and ask the first
question. David is a long time service officer. We're very happy to
have him currently serving as senior adviser at the Helsinki
Commission--senior State Department adviser at the Commission. Until
August, right before joining us, Dave was the Director of Russian
affairs at the State Department, so he has had a lot of experience with
Ukraine, given the Russia--Ukraine crisis. I'll pass it over to you,
Dave.
Mr. Kostelancik. Thank you. Thank you, Orest. Thanks to everyone.
Thanks to our guests for excellent presentations on the elections. Dr.
Burgess and my colleague Orest have made some significant points
regarding the elections in Ukraine but let me just make a short comment
regarding Russia and the Russian government's manipulation of
information, specifically in regard to its illegal activities in
Ukraine. First, as attested by our witnesses today, the determination
of the citizens of Ukraine to ensure that their country carries through
on its commitments, including those in the Helsinki Final Act and other
OSCE documents, contrast sharply with the failure of Russia to honor
those same international obligations. The power of truth, sometimes
neglected or downplayed or distorted in a world awash with cynicism,
has shone a spotlight on Moscow's transgressions in this part of the
world. Manipulation of information by Russia in such as systematic
manner intended not to educate, but only to corrode trust and
confidence, flies in the face of what we've all committed to uphold
through the OSCE. Today's opportunity to hear directly from people with
firsthand experience during the recent Ukrainian elections is an even
more vital piece of our support for the people of Ukraine and their
democratic choices.
Secondly, as they assume the OSCE chairmanship, Swiss officials
outlined three areas of focus promoting three major sets of values for
2014: security, by focusing on fostering enhanced security and
stability in Europe; freedom, by improving people's lives; and
responsibility, by strengthening the OSCE's ability to act. The Swiss
leadership and, indeed, all of us who place trust and confidence in the
OSCE have been sorely challenged to make progress in each of these
areas by Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and by its ongoing
violation of the norms and standards enshrined in the Helsinki Final
Act.
With this short background, I'd like to toss out for consideration
by our panel and by others in the audience: In light of these
violations, in light of the pressure Moscow continues to apply,
especially in attempting to cover up truths or distort realities of
governance in Ukraine, how can the United States, together with the
European Union, with other partners, help ensure that the democratic
will manifested in these elections strengthens and deepens political
participation in the future throughout Ukraine? That's been touched on
to some extent in some presentations--Katie, Gavin, Steve, Olga--but
I'd be very interested in hearing more from you about how we all can
work together to carry this momentum forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Nix. Sure. Well, thank you for the question, David. There's no
doubt that Russia propaganda has played a role, continues to play a
critical role in shaping opinion, wrongfully, not just in Ukraine and
in Eastern Ukraine, but in Europe and the West. I'm not sure at this
point in time we can match what the Russian government is outlaying in
terms of net dollars. They are--they have expended millions and
millions into cable network television, print media, radio media. It's
manifested by what you see in Russia today, which is now broadcasting
in several languages and promoting a line of fabricated news that just
doesn't represent the facts on the ground in Ukraine at all. It
distorts opinion, has made it very difficult for this government.
The fact that Russia attempts to stand up in its media broadcasts
for the rights of people in the East, when it ignores the human rights
of its own people, its own country, to me is appalling. And I think,
again, the continuing insulting line that we hear about the fascisti,
the fascist nature of the current Ukrainian government, the name-
calling, which, again, is just--not only is it regrettable, it's--
what's the Ukrainian word--``brekhnya''--it's total lies. And the West
has to figure out a way to counter this disinformation, not just in
Ukraine but in Europe. It's happening all over.
Ms. Aivazovska. I'll try to answer, because my English is not so
well, but when we are talking about freedom of speech, we should
understand that this story isn't about Russia, and about Russian media,
especially, that media who specialized on propaganda and so on. We
heard such story when these occupations started on spring, when our
governance tried to stop broadcasting of Russian TV, especially on the
eastern part of Ukraine.
Then many foreign organizations, including OSCE, said it is not
democracy if you stop to show these TV broadcasting in your territory.
But nobody tried to monitor context from Russian news because,
unfortunately, it isn't in use or analytical materials; it's really
propaganda without any truth about Ukraine, without facts, without some
fantastic stories from our territory and so on. That's why
international organizations with good capacity and strength should try
to monitor this information and publish truly results, reports about
context from Russian propaganda. It will be the very small but the
first step to stop the situation, especially in Europe and other
countries when Russian TV channels, Russian journalists have good
capacity and many money to promote their information on this territory.
Unfortunately, Ukraine is a poor country with war, and now a
territory with financial crisis and so on. That's why this should--a
small help from international organizations will be very useful for us.
I'm talking about monitoring and about very good reports, good--I'm
talking about systematic and strength reports about Russian propaganda
and Russian media, which will be helpful for all of us.
Mr. Weise. Can I take that as well? I just would agree, you know,
with Steve and Olga about that. The information wars are one of the
critical problems, and that I am not sure personally, of course, how to
address that fully. But I would also say that in addition to trying to
counter some of the information that is out there right now, it's also
important that, you know, besides this fraction of the area of Donbass,
the rest of Donetsk and the rest of Luhansk, and even parts of
Zaporozhye and Kharkiv and what have you, Dnipropetrovsk, it's also
very important to concentrate on information sources in these regions
as well, because these regions they voted majority, let's say, pro-
European, but that doesn't mean that this is 99 percent of the people
as well.
There will be a lot of reforms that Ukraine must undergo in the
next 12 months, 24 months, I'm not sure how long, but it's very
important, I think, that support be given to the Ukrainian authorities
on communicating what this European choice means.
The second point I am going to make here is just that, getting
outside of the area of media, and I don't think we're there yet, of
course, but I do also worry about, you know, the longer the conflict
drags on--and this is ultimately what I think Russia's intention is, is
to solidify the situation and to get to the point where we are stuck,
you know, and where we cannot easily go back. You saw the Ukrainian
army rapidly pushing back on the separatists and on the territory held
by the separatists, and that's when you immediately saw, a few months
ago, the counter-action by special forces of Russia, and supplies, in
order to stop that beating back and to reverse the situation.
I'm still not giving up and I still don't think we're there yet,
and I still think the situation can be turned around. But in terms of
support, as well, looking ahead, the more the situation gets to be of a
semi-permanent nature, we need to make sure that there is continued
support for Ukraine to show the difference, to show what European
Ukraine is going to mean. We need to try to come to the point where it
looks more, sort of, like, let's say, Germany, you know, a GDR FDR
situation, where clearly there is a better alternative and that's what
the citizens want. That's something that would require a lot of support
and a lot of investment on Ukraine, because there has to be shown to
the people that are left there, because we also know that many of the
people who were most anti-separatist and most pro-Ukrainian have been
forced to flee--but that we show that there is a far better opportunity
out there and a way of life, and that these people can have this way of
life too.
Ms. Fox. I wanted to add that it's a relatively small slice of
Ukraine that is not getting Ukrainian unbiased source of information as
opposed to Russian sources, and the information war is very, very, very
important, including in Germany and the U.S. and a lot of places
outside of Ukraine. But in Ukraine there are hearts and minds to be won
over by people not subject to Russian propaganda, and as I tried to
point out in my remarks, there are opportunities, I think, for both
civil society and the government to do that.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. OK, thank you. Now we'll move on to questions
from the audience. If you could please come up to the mic, because this
is going to be--this is being transcribed. Please identify yourselves.
You're welcome to make comments, but try to keep them short and
concise, and ask a question at the end, or simply ask a question. So.
We'll give it a little time, because I know--That's right. Olga had set
this up, and we forgot to take advantage of it when she was presenting.
So, please, go on and tell us what else OPORA is involved with. Thank
you.
Ms. Aivazovska. Why? Yuri is my colleague from Ukraine. He is
leader of our network and he knows very well about parliamentary
monitoring, because we understood in 2012 that after election our life
doesn't happen--don't and--and that's why we tried to push our
parliament to be more transparent, to be more accountability--to have
more level of accountability and so on. We have some ideas. Yuri?
Mr. Yuri. OK. Hello, everybody. Observing the elections we have
understood that, OK, elections will be good and parliament can be good
and properly elected, or openly elected, but then what's going on in
the parliament after the elections? We were there, in their work,
monitoring them. What do we do? Firstly, we monitor all the
quantitative information we can get, and not only monitoring but also
do two things. Firstly, we propose changes and our amendments,
recommendations and views to the parliament, to the committees and to
the MPs like how to work better, what could be improved or, for
example, what could be improved just like this? This also were
important because sometimes they can't see that they can improve a lot
of things and they don't need any money or resources for this.
Secondly, we analyze the qualitative information--draft laws, laws. We
have a special methodology containing of 30-something criterias how to
analyze the draft law, how to calculate how much is transparent,
qualified, quantified, and if it will work or not. Also, we read all
the draft laws our parliament produce. It's something I think like 600
per month, yeah, draft laws. So we read all of them, give our comments
on each and every one of them, like proposing that maybe this could be
improved somehow or maybe, like, stop working with this and, like,
forget about it for a few months and so on. That's the main things we
are doing now.
After the elections we have got a lot of our own experience of
election organizing about the job of government should do. We will
prepare, in a few weeks, a bunch of recommendations and improvements
for parliamentary legislation--for the governmental legislation for the
changes to the political party law. As you've seen, like, right now the
political party doesn't work properly for the transparency of partisan
public finances.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. OK, thank you. Any other questions? Karl, come on
up to the mic--from our Baltic friends.
Questioner. This is not so much a question but just a--just a
comment, I suppose. My name is Karl Altau with the Joint Baltic
American National Committee. We represent the Estonian, Latvian and
Lithuanian American communities. We're actually here on the Hill today
in the Senate--perfect timing because you had this briefing today, but
we're dropping off letters to the Senate asking for support for the
Crimea Nonrecognition Resolution and also the Ukraine Support Act.
We've been just leaving the message we're here in support of
Ukraine, also the Baltic countries and our Central East European
colleagues and allies. We're very anxious right now, obviously, so this
election result was very--was very positive for us as well, although we
realize that the situation also is very dire.
I commend along with my colleagues who are here today, we commend
your bravery and your fortitude in moving forward. So we'll continue to
work together with you. Actually working with the Ukrainian community
on two days of advocacy next week in the Congress, so we'll be back and
spreading the word. I wanted to recognize my two colleagues who are
with me today: Christina in the back over there, and Elsma right here.
So we stand with you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. Thanks a lot, Karl.
Let me take advantage of this opportunity. Indeed there is going to
be a lot of advocacy, particularly on behalf of S. 2828, the Ukraine
Freedom Support Act. This is a bill that was introduced in the Senate
before the break by Senators Menendez and Corker. And I'm proud that my
chairman--our chairman of the Helsinki Commission, Senator Ben Cardin,
is an original cosponsor, along with Senators Ed Markey and Rob
Portman. So it's a bipartisan bill.
It garnered the support of all 18 members of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. This was on the day that President Poroshenko
appeared and spoke before Congress, but it was also the day that the
Senate left before the break. We'll see if, during this lame duck
session, this bill will pass or not. It remains to be seen. It's
possible, but I think it's far from certain, for a lot of reasons.
I'm saying this as one who hopes it passes during the lame duck
session--there will be opportunities in the next Congress, because it's
important to send a message to Moscow. The bill of course, as you know,
calls for defensive military aid--some call it lethal military
assistance--as well as increasing and strengthening sanctions. That's
something that, even if we look at the events of recent days, in terms
of Moscow's continued aggression in southeastern Ukraine, it really
calls for more action by the United States and the international
community.
Anybody else have a question? Oh, Paul. OK.
Questioner. Hi. I'm Paul Massaro. I am a staff associate of the
U.S. Helsinki Commission. And thank you all very much for your
comments. I guess I've gotten from the comments that it seems like
building the new governing coalition following the election has been
quite difficult at this point. I wanted to see if maybe you could
elaborate on some of the points of contention currently in the
coalition-building process, and I guess also maybe what kind of
coalition we could end up with in Ukraine. Thank you.
Mr. Nix. You go first.
Ms. Aivazovska. OK. I think that we will see a coalition from four
political parties: Petro Poroshenko, People's Front, Samopomich,
Lyashko's party, and maybe with Batkivshchyna. So four or five, because
all of these political parties are going to prepare their own coalition
agreement. And we know some points of these agreement. It is very good
as for me because it looks like a plan because before we never had such
plan for political parties in our parliament, unfortunately even some
calendar of our draft laws about the main objectives for parliament, or
some fraction and so on.
I don't think so that we really had a big problem with this
coalition, but we will have a problem with opposition, because our
parliament needs to have a really qualitative and effective and active
opposition because these political parties which organized a coalition
will be much more progressive if they will have great opposition in the
parliament. Unfortunately, our oppositional bloc will not such great
opposition for this coalition.
But the main problem now, it is a discussion about future
government, because questions about prime minister and ministers in
this government are on the closed doors in the presidential
administration, as usually. Some of the political parties, which are
the part which is part of this new coalition, publicly said that they
don't want to be part of government, but unfortunately in a real
discussion we heard other messages from all of them. That's why our
president wants to--to to have a main bloc in the government, as we
know, but the results of people's bloc show that president didn't won
this election--I'm talking about national districts. Of course,
presidential party get many mandates in single-mandate districts, but
politically, emotionally, they didn't win this campaign.
Mr. Nix. In response to your basic question, what are the
particulars of these current discussions in the formation of
government, no different than any other. These are discussions about
primarily the prime minister and other positions in government.
Let's remember, it's important to note that Ukraine is now back to
the constitution of 2004, where the prime minister wields tremendous
power, but under the current circumstances, in his position as
commander in chief of the armed forces, the president continues to
wield considerable power because the war is central to just about
everything that the new government will undertake.
The prime minister's position is very important because of the fact
that Ukraine is at war, the president also has important powers. So
this is driving a lot of the discussion. Obviously, Mr. Yatsenyuk and
his bloc feel that he should continue as prime minister. I think it's a
fair guess that he probably will. My prediction is that the government
will be formed in the next two to two-and-a-half weeks.
The pro-European parties have a lot in Parliament, they will form a
coalition. It will be pro-European. A lot of the discussions are some
of the minor ministries and there's also discussion about what should
be the subject that the primary and first areas of reform, but I think
there's basic agreement. Again, all you have to do is look at the
polling data is what the people expect. The people expect peace and
security, some solution to the military aggression in the east, and
they expect quick government action on the creation of jobs and
combating corruption.
Those are the main issues, that's what the people want, and these
newly elected members of Parliament and these new ministers, whoever
they are, are aware of that, and they know that they're going to be
watched and judged in the next several months as to whether they
perform on that. If they don't, you might see people back in the
streets again.
I think this government is going to come up with a coalition, it's
going to come up with an agenda and it's going to move Ukraine forward,
but again, as I said in my opening statement, Ukraine can't do it by
itself. It needs a lot of assistance from the West.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. OK, thank you. We have time for one more
question. Going once, going--go.
Questioner. Hi, my name is William McConnell. I work in the office
of Congresswoman Lois Frankel, and I was at the State Department before
this working for Assistant Secretary Nuland right about the time that
Director Kostelancik left.
My question concerns mostly how the new coalition, will that change
the dynamic surrounding the association agreement with the European
Union? Will certain agreements, especially with Russia, be revisited in
your opinion? And will that change?
Mr. Weise. I will say very briefly that I think the electoral
outcome, as it were, the outcomes, I think, was also, you know, a stamp
of legitimacy for the pro-Europe for some of these agreements that had
already been made. Now as to whether or not, you know, this moves
forward, some of the delays that had been instituted on that agreement
at the last minute, I really don't know.
It is conceivable because it also seems like many other deals that
were made are sort of now off the table. They're not officially off the
table but, you know, things have been violated, and so that gives the
president, the grounds to go back to the table and look to maybe even
implement some of those agreements even at a more rapid schedule.
Mr. Deychakiwsky. So you're saying we don't know. Nobody knows, but
that was a good answer.
First, I want to thank the audience. This is actually, you may or
may not know quite a Ukraine day. It turns out, according a count of a
colleague of mine, there are seven events or meetings on Ukraine today
in Washington. That testifies to the interest and attention that's
being garnered to Ukraine and the Ukrainian crisis these days.
I want to thank our panelists for really excellent presentations.
Insightful, interesting and a great discussion. More importantly for
all the work that you and your organizations are doing to consolidate
democracy in Ukraine, something which clearly is not only in Ukraine's
interest but as we've increasingly seen with events that have taken
place over the course of the last year, very much in the interests of
the international global order and international peace and security.
I have to make a commercial announcement. The commission will be
holding a hearing on corruption next Wednesday. You could get the
information on our website, www.csce.gov, and that hearing will also
have a Ukraine component.
Thank you again for the presentations, and thank you for coming.
The briefing's adjourned.
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