Recent developments in the election process in Ukraine may lead to potential de-legitimisation of the election results, no matter who formally wins it.

The period between the two rounds of the presidential elections have seen a series of alarming events showing that both sides are getting ready for falsifications on the part of their opponents, and for post-election confrontation:

• The situation with two chairmen and two seals of the Higher Administrative Court, being the highest judicial instance to approve the election results;
• Dismissal and re-establishment of the acting Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko;
• The seizure of Ukrayina printing house that prints voting ballots, along with passports;
• Information regarding the amassing of supporters of the candidates around Kiev;
• A ruling of the County administrative court of Kyiv banning mass events in Kyiv’s Maidan square during the period from 1 February till 1 March 2010 (before the Court banned the vents for the period from 9 January till 5 February);
• The amendment of the election legislation in the Verkhovna Rada on Wednesday, 3 February, just a few days before voting.

Those who closely monitor the elections know the background of those events, so I will not dwell upon each of them here. More details can be found in materials presented on the Ukrayiniska Pravda web site.

However, amendments to the Law “On Election of the President of Ukraine” adopted on Wednesday deserve particular attention. Amendment of the election legislation in the heat of the election race is alarming by itself. It becomes especially dangerous, if we take a look at what was amended, and how.

In short, 233 votes (against the required minimum number of 226 votes) of three parties – the Party of Regions (led by Viktor Yanukovych), the Communist Party of Ukraine and 29 votes of “Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defence” bloc (led by Viktor Yushchenko) – introduced amendments to the law “On Election of the President of Ukraine” concerning organisation of election commissions’ activity.

The passed amendments cancelled the norm whereby an election commission meeting was deemed valid, if attended by not less than two-thirds of the commission members, in that way removing the notion of a quorum in the election commission activity. It is noteworthy that the Scientific Expert Department of the Verkhovna Rada recommended that bill to be rejected. Nevertheless, Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko signed the Law as soon as February 4.

The amendments open up vast opportunities for non-recognition and contestation of the results of the voting. If we trace the situation to its potential extremes, a chairman of an election commission carrying a seal may on his own approve election results at his polling station. And if another member (or a few members) of that election commission manage to somehow produce a duplicate of the seal (whiсh is not that impossible as it may seem at first sight), they may adopt entirely different results of voting at their station. Someone else, disagreeing with the former and the latter alike, may apply to court. And so on, and so forth. Situations that may arise in the result of the passed amendments are many.

To justify those amendments, the Party of Regions argues that in this way they tried to oppose possible plans of Yulia Tymoshenko to derail the election process by ordering her representatives in election commissions to walk out on the voting day, to make them fall short of the quorum.

But even if they were guided by such intentions, the harm of the adopted amendments in the legislation far exceeds all imaginable potential threats, since “the law conceals an even greater danger – distortion of the voting results and non-recognition of the president elect by society.”

Therefore, Ukraine came close to the red line of an advanced de-legitimisation of the election results. In that situation, we would even not be able to speak of falsifications, because it will be absolutely unclear what results to trust. And with the trust in exit polls undermined after the first round, the country may fall into a collapse of non-recognition of the president-elect not only by elections and court rulings but also in people’s consciousness.

It is too late to change the situation. One way or another, the country may approach a chaotic scenario with unpredictable consequences.

Therefore, the role of the international community, EU and international organisations in the field of human rights, in particular  goes up. Yesterday the  European Parliament members and the rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for Ukraine  Renate Wohlwend have already denounced those amendments. Today High Representative Baroness Ashton made a statement, where called “on all candidates to ensure that the will of the people can once more be expressed at the polls this Sunday”.

It is highly important therefore that the international community further takes a firm position based on strong commitment to non-violation and recognition of the results of free demonstration of the voters’ will and principles of legal and peaceful settlement of disputes of any kind.